


The Altese Falcon Job

by page_runner



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Developing Relationship, F/M, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Canon, Whump, falcon smuggling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21956785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/page_runner/pseuds/page_runner
Summary: When Maggie and Sterling go missing while on business in Dubai, Nate and Sophie call the trio for help tracking down a rare falcon in the Russian Steppes.What does a falcon have in common with a complicated plan?They can both go south.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Maggie Collins/Jim Sterling, Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford
Comments: 61
Kudos: 158
Collections: 2019 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BiP](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiP/gifts).



> ...who asked for: 
> 
> The OT3! Maggie! Sterling! I’m a fan of whump/hurtcomfort but I need a happy ending.  
> One of the OT3 gets menaced, the others are protective (think Grave Danger Job). 
> 
> This has all of those things and also more information on falcons than I ever expected to include in a fanfic. 
> 
> Mild warnings for discussions of animal abuse, nothing graphic. 
> 
> I hope you like it!

Eliot. Car Trunk. Present.

The pull of Parker’s fingers wrapped tight in his hair drags him back to the world. They ground Eliot as he takes in what he can of his surroundings, the jolting moldy carpet floor and the muffled sputter of a Soviet-made car, repaired too many times and only running because to break down completely would not be Russian. He blinks, eyelashes hindered by a blindfold, and runs a too-thick, sticky-dry tongue around the roof of his mouth, the arc of currently intact, if not all original, teeth.

“Parker?” Her name is more groan and rasp than word as it cracks past his lips, but the fingers leashing his scalp tighten in answer, then loosen their grip, something rough scraping across his cheek. 

“Mmmph.”

Gagged then, though he isn’t, except by his own thick tongue and loose, marbled thoughts. They flow away, wind an updraft above green meadows cut by rocky cliffs.

The car bounces over a pothole and both of them bounce with it, his teeth jarring against skin and something fibrous. Rope?

Parker cries out, the sound muffled so it pierces only him, sparks anger flaring bright in the darkness of his world.

“You hurt?” Nothing. “One for no, two for yes. I need to know, sweetheart.” The word slips out easy, almost too easy, after all the years he’s kept a stranglehold on it.

Her silence tells him as much as the two short sharp sounds she finally releases in confirmation. Parker hates to admit weakness almost as much as he does, but she also knows he’s right. “Legs?” _No._ “Body?” _No._ “Arm?” _Yes._ Her bound hands—right, yes, fingers plus rope—bang against his mouth again. “Broken?” he mumbles around the obstacle.

_Yes._

He’s going to kill whoever did this. Is doing this.

Her fingers brush cold across his lips. He kisses them gently, somehow finds enough air to breathe warmth into them. 

Then, Eliot sets to work, gnawing at the rope binding her.

Nate. French Riviera. Three days ago.

Nate answered his phone without more than the barest of glances to see if he knew the number. He didn’t, but that was hardly unusual in his line of work— _ahem_ , _former line of work_ —and if it was some ridiculous Scam Likely (he secretly loved that designation), well, then he could have some _fun_.

“Nathan Ford?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded young, female, calm, and composed, making the question less query and more authentication. He might not know the number, but he did know that voice.

“Hello, Olivia.” He smiled at the pause as Olivia silently tried to piece together how he’d known it was her. As if he’d forget the precocious young woman staring steadily at him from across a chess board. In his periphery, Sophie poked her head into the room.

“I haven’t heard from my father in two days,” Olivia said finally, forgoing her other questions. _Good_. It’s become automatic, that internal assessment and praise. Nate might enjoy his retirement from a life of crime, but he missed being a mentor. “He usually checks in by now.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s too stubborn to be anything else and you know his work is sometimes sensitive—” Nate winced as he made the bullshit excuse. Once upon a time, he’d have laughed at the idea of James Sterling calling his daughter every night. He’d have laughed at the idea of Sterling _having_ a daughter. Once upon a time they’d both have laughed at the idea that either of them would make a good parent. Neither of them would laugh at it now, even after that test of fate.

But Nate, who knew something of trying to be better than the self-loathing asshole he woke up inside each morning, recognized the same in Sterling, as much as he hated to admit the fact.

Not to mention, Olivia didn’t spook easily. “He’s not on Interpol business,” she told Nate, clearly impatient with his consolation. “He went with Maggie to finalize a sale on several artworks.”

 _Next time, lead with that_. “ _MAGGIE?_ ” He cleared his throat, reasserting control over his own voice. “Where.”

“You didn’t know they were together?” Lesser mortals when discussing the love life of her father with the ex-husband of his girlfriend might have shied away from such directness. Olivia Sterling had never been a lesser mortal, Nate was quite sure. _You don’t think that highly of_ anyone _. Why her?_ He ignored the thought as unimportant. “She mentioned it, I—ah—”

“Erased it from your memory?” Olivia asked wryly. Sophie appeared, gaze worried, and placed a tumbler into his empty hand. Whiskey, neat, one finger. Sophie dealt in compromise. She stood behind him, rested her head on his shoulder, conveniently close enough to hear Olivia’s voice while grounding the pieces of him about to scatter.

“Where did they go? Last place.”

“Dubai.” There he heard the heavy worry, tinged with doubt. Was this concern warranted or simply fear of a place she had bad memories of? Nate decided it didn’t matter.

“We’ll be on the next plane,” he promised, with a quick glance at Sophie for affirmation. She nodded, stepped away to make a call to Hardison. Not that they couldn’t handle their own travel arrangements, but having some tech backup to track them down wouldn’t hurt and the hacker would do it for Maggie. _If it was only Sterling…_ in any case his old rival would owe him one and Nate didn’t intend to let him forget it. “Tell me everything you know.”

Maggie. Dubai. Five days ago.

“I can _not_ believe you, James.”

The problem was, Maggie could, in fact, believe him. After all, she’d known him for more years than she really cared to count at this point, had spent the majority of the last four coming up with perfectly sensible reasons not to date him, and over the course of the last two, slowly disregarded all those sensible reasons. _That_ was the problem. She could be sensible in all other aspects of her life—why not when it came to men? “Do you know how _tired_ I am of getting locked into rooms because the men I date can’t resist breaking the law? It’s exhausting!”

“Keep your voice down,” James said, infuriatingly unperturbed. “We’re in Dubai, so technically us being in this room together is breaking the law. Keep the word _date_ to yourself. Here, we’re _married_.”

“Oh, I _will_ be keeping it to myself, no worries about that. I’ll also be burning that stupid fake marriage license the moment we get back to London.” Maggie took some satisfaction in the flicker of realization that crossed his face then. Good. He needed to know how badly he’d screwed things up, and for a man like James Sterling, getting locked in a tiny room in a sheikh’s compound after being discovered rifling through papers in his private office barely registered on the scale. “He’s my _client_ , Jim. Everything else aside, you _used_ me. All because of a bird.”

“Not _just_ a bird, Maggie,” James protested, as she knew he would. “If he’s smuggling falcons into the UAE, he’s likely involved in other types of trafficking. And you know I can’t get clearance to investigate that—not _here_ —without solid evidence.”

“What I know, is that you didn’t tell me any of that. _You_ told me you should accompany me because it’s safer and we could have a little vacation. _You_ argued that we both work too hard. _You_ insisted you’d make my job easier since you speak Arabic and can intercede with anyone not willing to listen or deal with a woman! You said a lot of things, James, and _none_ of them were ‘By the way, do you mind distracting your client while I violate his privacy?’ And _I’m_ the idiot who believed you!” She sat down, refusing to look at him. James could manage remorse quite convincingly when he put his mind to it and Maggie wasn’t in the mood right now.

“Mags—”

She interrupted him. “You said ‘if.’ _If_ he’s smuggling falcons.”

“I _told_ — I needed proof.”

“Your daughter is going to be so worried, Jim. You know how she feels about Dubai. Was _that_ worth it?” She couldn’t help sneak a glance now, having invoked the one chink in James’s armor. And true, in the war of expressions playing out over his face, the ones currently winning were worry and pride, though not, as she quickly discovered, for the reasons she’d anticipated.

“What are the chances she’ll call Nate for help, do you think?”

 _Goddammit._ “I hate you so much right now.”


	2. Chapter 2

Parker. Car trunk. Present.

She hates the inside of her head right now, all hot and stuffy, full of junk and jerking leaps from one bumpy rut of thought to the next. Much like the trunk of the car they’re trapped in—which she also hates—and the fact that she can’t get them out of it, not unless Eliot manages to work through the rope pinning her arms, one numb, one a flare of radiating agony. _Dammit_. She hates remembering her arm, so she stuffs that awareness to the back of her mind. It’s just pain, after all.

Rather than focus on her arm, she listens to the coughing engine, registers Eliot’s panting breath against her hands. Thinking about her hands is a short step from thinking about her arms, but she’s good at compartmentalizing. Besides, she likes the closeness of him, forced as it is. It’s better than thinking about the report of the rifle, of losing her grip and focus at the sight of Eliot crumpling beneath her, belay rope sliding though his limp fingers. Of falling, the warm feathered body in her grip fluttering free, but only catching enough air to slow its descent. Of briefly interrupting her own fall, snatching at the rocky cliff-face, fingertips shredding as she finds a handhold. Of something—some _one_ —yanking on the rope, pulling her from the cliff to crash beside Eliot. Of her forearm snapping in impact, air knocked from her lungs. Of the cruel laughter of the men standing over both of them.

It’s better to think of lashing out, biting the first one stupid enough to come near, of recognizing in relief, the tranq dart sticking in Eliot’s neck. Not good, but not dead. The rifle reporting again, her thigh suddenly stinging, and everything fading away.

The car stops for a moment, engine sinking to an idle and the harsh rasp of Eliot’s breath fills the comparative silence. She listens for it, even as the car begins to move again, down a rutted, unpaved road. _Don’t do anything stupid_ , she wants to tell Eliot. Would, if not for the gag in her mouth. _And biting them was so smart?_

They stop again, for good this time, the engine silenced as doors open and slam shut. She listens to the voices of their captors as they round the back of the car, greeting someone new.

_< We got the bird. Beauty. Big money from her. Caught two others after her. Brought them with.>_

< _Tourists? >_

_< No. They had traps.>_

_< Scientists?>_

_< No tags. No permits. Don’t worry about what they are. Grigory will want to see them.>_

She thumps her head on the floor of the trunk in frustration. Hardison had wanted them to go in posing as scientists. She’d nixed the idea, arguing that if they were there to poach a bird, they should fit that profile. He’d been right.

_< One of them’s a pretty little thing. But fierce.>_

Eliot growls and Parker agrees. That description applies to _both_ of them, _thankyouverymuch._ “I won’ let them—”

The trunk opening cuts short the rest of Eliot’s promise. He’s hauled out first, launching immediately into a tirade of taunts in English and extremely broken Russian insulting their mothers, wives, girlfriends, tiny dicks… Parker’s rather impressed at his performance until she hears the first thud of fist hitting flesh.

Eliot’s hands are bound.

She can’t see, or shout, or move, so all she can do is listen as they laugh and beat him. There’s a cracking gasp as he’s thrown against the car’s bumper. Darker thuds that sound like boots. A scrape of gravel and shouts of surprise: _< He’s up, he’s up!>_ and Parker smiles despite everything. 

< _Shoot him up again. It’s up to Grigory to decide what to do with them. And I want some quiet tonight. Fuckin’ Americans. >_

The tranq rifle reports. The dull, syncopated thumps of a ragdoll collapsing.

Hands haul at her then, Parker letting out a cry as they grab her broken arm. She could have stayed quiet, but she’s going to need a slight personality shift to get both her and Eliot out of this.

Once she’s out of the trunk, staggering on wobbling legs, a voice—the main talker—asks in rough English: “He husband? Boyfriend?”

She tries futilely to speak through the gag. The other men laugh, but Talker yanks it down, then lifts her blindfold for good measure, so she can see Eliot bloodied and beaten at her feet.

She also sees:

Four men, all of them with blood on knuckles and/or boots. _They’ll pay for that._

A long building, likely a barn, and the corner of a farmhouse, the rest outside her periphery.

The hazy shade of twilight, darkening the surrounding hills into distant shadows.

Talker, the foremost of the four, has bright, hard eyes and a mouth that likes to twist both up and down. He does that now as Parker works saliva back into her mouth only to spit it at Eliot’s shape.

“No. He’s a pig. Paid good money for a climber, but he has a temper.” She kicks him, hard, on the ass where it won’t do any lasting damage. Eliot doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move at all. She forces herself not to linger over him. “I don’t know anything! It was just a job, right? Let me go and keep him!” He won’t begrudge her this angle, but she hates saying the words all the same.

“Cannot, Little Bird,” Talker says. “We wait. Grigory come. You have boss—” he kicks Eliot in the ribs. Parker hears one give. _Fuck_. “I have boss.”

 _< What you_ _telling her that for?_ >

Talker turns. _< Who cares? What’s she going to do, escape?>_

 _That’s the plan. Eventually._ “Please—don’t lock me in with him!”

Talker laughs, nudging Eliot’s head with his boot. “He sleep. If lucky, he sleep all night.” He yanks her blindfold back down. “You scream or bite, gag is back, yes?”

Parker lets out a shaky breath. There’s no point in fighting right now, not with Eliot unconscious at her feet. “I won’t,” she promises, behaving herself as they walk her up to—probably—the right side of the farmhouse. She can’t see much more than tiny slivers of grass and her feet, but with her glimpse to orient herself, she’s reasonably sure. She listens to them pull up an old hatch door. A rusty lock, a hinge bar, the creak and grunt as heavy swollen wood is forced to budge, the damp mustiness of a cellar…

The men carrying Eliot dump him, his body tumble-thumping on stairs. Then Talker gives her a shove. “Hope you not afraid of dark.”

She doesn’t bother answering him, just steps forward and finds her own way.

Sophie. Dubai. Two days ago.

Sophie sipped at her tea, expression carefully serene as she listened to Nate bluster his way into their mark’s compound. Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmed Al Falasi, well-known and well-respected collector of art, sculpture, and falcons in both the Eastern and Western world. According to Olivia, Maggie and her father had come to close an art sale Maggie’d facilitated. It should have gone smoothly. The fact that it did not was entirely Sterling’s fault, Sophie was sure, but the question remained if his instinct was correct. She couldn’t deny he had a nose for corruption and under the table dealings.

 _And Maggie has a knack for seeing the best in people_. Sophie didn’t dismiss that skill as naivete, as she might in some people, even if it currently had her trying to sort through two sets of instincts. Three, if she counted Nate’s acting choices.

Unsurprisingly, he was playing a brash American. _“All I know is that my friend had a meeting here and if you don’t let me in—"_

Sophie smirked, rubbed her legs together under the table, under the long skirt she wore to avoid notice. Doing a job, rescuing Sterling, it was practically a second honeymoon. _And Maggie?_ She brushed away the inner voice as tiresome. She had a lot of inner voices and their job involved taking over her mouth when she needed them to. But her thoughts were her own and she approved of Maggie. After all, the woman kept falling for the exact type of men Sophie did. Why see that as competition, when instead she could see a kindred spirit?

They’d need to have a girl’s holiday once this was over _—_ somewhere warm, but _certainly_ not Dubai. Bring along Tara and Parker if she could be tempted by the idea of providing their “honest” friend with the type of toolbox she’d need if she intended on continuing her current love life trajectory. 

_“Mr. Al Falasi, finally. Pleasure to meet you, or it will be once we’ve got this straightened out. My friend—"_

The sheikh was too soft spoken for Sophie to catch on the comms—she’d have to mention that to Hardison—but Nate’s answer filled in the gaps.

_“She came with that asshole? No, I'm here about Maggie, very close friend, horrible taste in men. You can keep him, if you know what I mean!”_

_Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nate._

Sophie took another sip of tea, frowned at the temperature, and the temperature only, not at the crass hack job Nate was making several miles away. She topped off her cup with fresh tea from the pot on the table.

_“Her hu-ahem-husband, right yes, no they are definitely married. I was at her wedding!”_

_Well, that’s certainly true in a sense._

_“Look I deal in import and export, if you catch my drift. Whadya say we make a trade? I give you something, you give me something. Nah—Maggie’s not involved in any of that, she’s completely legit. I’ve never managed to be quite so faithful...”_

Their styles were so different, hers and Nate’s, but they both knew the art of tapping into people’s desires. She simply approached it as a luxury, while he approached it as a sin.

It took another ten minutes, distracting her so much she forgot to remove the tea leaves stepping in the pot before they turned the brew bitter with tannins. She ordered a fresh pot.

The sheikh wanted a pure white saker falcon, young and trainable. A rare bird and likely impossible to locate legally, otherwise a man of his resources would have already done so. It’s such a specific request, Sophie wondered if he’d caught wind of one—or if he was sending them on a snipe hunt. Still, he promised that if Nate could provide a white saker, the sheikh would release Maggie and Sterling with no charges filed, and he’d pay them for the bird—a highly discounted rate to be sure, Sophie remembered hearing of sakers selling anywhere from five hundred thousand to more than four million dollars on the black market—but a hefty sum all the same.

The hook had been set. She sent a message off to Hardison that they needed to talk. Nate and their new mark would be here soon. Everything was looking quite promising.

Hardison. Portland. Two days ago. 

“Lemme get this straight,” Hardison said to Sophie on the phone, while winking at Eliot. _Never pass up a chance to gain information, make a pun, and annoy your new boyfriend at the same time._ And okay, not _new_ boyfriend exactly, but _boy friend_ slowly accepting his fate as _boyfriend_ —y’know, maybe he should finish that sentence to Soph.

“Y’all want us to help rescue Sterling?? From Dubai.” Eliot's glare doubled, possibly tripled in wattage at several keywords in that sentence, as Hardison had known it would.

What he hadn't counted on was the man moving faster than Parker down an elevator shaft, snatching the phone from Hardison's grip, snapping, “Answer’s _NO_ , Soph,” before dumping it into the milkshake Parker'd been begging him to make her for the past three hours. (Hardison had two warring suspicions about the motivations of that milkshake based on the song he's been hearing her hum in the vents all morning, and her mentioning a plan involving ants as a misdirection. Hell, possibly the ants were her boys, he’s pretty sure those ants were boys? _Note: look up if he’s misgendering drone ants. Note the Second: Are the worker ants called drones or is that just bees?_ )

Eliot, sap that he was, had finally started making her the milkshake, but apparently he didn't mind flavoring it with plastic and silicon. Next up would be a stupid joke about it being Hardison-flavored, probably. If one of them didn’t make it, he'd have to do it himself, and that'd be just rude, forcing a man into that position.

Parker’s phone rang almost immediately. Hardison decided not to bother explaining he’d already been helping Sophie with their teensie Dubai-based problem. At the time, it’d only been research, quick profile info on a certain sheikh, the type of stuff he did while half-asleep. Hell, he _had_ done it while half-asleep, sending it off right before Eliot silently crept up behind him and scared the bejeezus out of him growling “If you don’t come to bed now I’ll _carry_ you.” Hardison could appreciate a good threat, and Eliot had the best threat voice around. So throaty.

 _Ahem._ _Back to present, Alec’s brain._

Anyway, he’d figured if Nate and Sophie needed further help, of course they’d be down. Sophie’d waited to get him on the phone before saying the mood-killer: _Sterling_.

Parker, more confident in her reflexes, answered her phone with a blithe “Hi Sophie!” as if she hadn’t a care in the world for its endangered status within Eliot’s reach. “Oh, nothing much. Eliot’s making me a Hardison-themed milkshake...mmhhmm! He dumped a whole phone in it.” She dipped a finger in the mix and sucked it clean, considering. “Bold statement, but lacking in execution.”

“You wanna see somethin’ executed?!” Eliot growled.

At the same moment, Hardison said, “Dunno, looks pretty executed to me,” and oh yeah, that kind of synchronicity definitely earned them a fist bump. He grinned as Eliot obliged.

Dating Eliot had thus far been like that game _Red Light, Green Light._ At first, most of the lights were red. Hell, _all_ of the lights were red until D.C., when Hardison, shaking from the aftermath of adrenaline and fear of losing both the people he loved the most, went straight back to that subway car, hauled Eliot to his feet, and kissed him hard the moment he got there. Eliot returned it enthusiastically, while Parker watched them and asked, “Is that kiss for luck? Can I have one?” They’d gotten a hotel room that night with a single, king-sized bed and by morning, Hardison was ready to have the _talk_ making this all official. Turned out, Eliot was ready for a talk too. His came out first; a brief, firm sentence: “This ain’t happenin’ again.”

Except it did. After jobs mostly, though not all of them. After that first kiss, Hardison let Eliot do all the initiating, though he knows Parker jumped him a few times and let him figure out how he wanted to respond.

It wasn’t a good few months, considering. Nate and Sophie newly gone, Parker figuring out how to lead a team and run a con, and Eliot in the worst mood Hardison had ever seen him in, disappearing at the drop of a hat (if they weren’t on a job) to go pick up someone in a bar. Parker followed him until Hardison told her to stop and let Eliot work out whatever the hell he was working out, though Hardison had a few guesses. Most of their early jobs ended up being close calls, as they worked out the kinks, and afterward, they worked out some other kinks, before Eliot’s stupid red light came back on the next morning.

And so it went.

Now, Parker rolled her eyes and tucked the phone between her jaw and her chin. “Hang on,” she told Sophie. Last Christmas, Hardison had talked Eliot into helping him build Parker a climbing wall. The project was an all-around success, not least because he and El ended up having a sawdust-flavored makeout session in the middle of it, which Hardison should have _hated_ , but when a guy’s best friend with sometime benefits who he’s madly in love with slams him up against plywood and climbs _him_ in lieu of the half-built wall, he’s wont to forget the amount of particulates in the air. Also, damn if wood wasn’t a great flavor on Eliot.

_Seriously? BRAIN._

Uhhh, _anyway_ , Parker’d loved the wall, obviously, and now she climbed upside down over the curve and up, until she reached the rafters. “Okay,” she said to Sophie. “You’re safe now. I’m putting you on speaker.”

“Was that really necessary, Eliot?” Sophie asked, her voice showering down on them from Parker’s perch.

“Why’d ya think I’d agree to anything that includes the words ‘Sterling’ and ‘Dubai’?” Eliot demanded. And okay, so the man had a point, Hardison had to admit. Eliot’s experience the last time they’d combined those two terms with that particular Boolean hadn’t been the greatest, what with the whole having to hang out with Sterling and getting drugged by him while Parker and Hardison played a bunch of DDR.

“Because it also involves _Maggie_ ,” Sophie shot back from the rafters.

Well, that changed everything.

Sophie explained what she and Nate had in mind, telling them to talk it over and let her know. As Parker tucked her phone away and descended, Hardison caught the expression on El’s face before he managed to stuff it out of sight. The resigned _been-there-done-that-not-looking-to-do-it-again_ look. Which, yeah, made sense. He’d been a retrieval specialist, and rich folks loved them some wild-ass animals running around their fancy houses wrecking shit. 

“Okay,” said Parker, feet back on the ground, “how hard can it be to find a white falcon?”

Eliot’s jaw clenched. “So we’re doin’ this? Jus’ like that?”

Oh yeah, definitely time to run interference. Hardison held up his hands. “Lemme do some research first, before we start discussing. Gimme a few hours, and then we’ll have a family meetin’. Sound good?”

Parker folded her arms, head cocked, but thankfully didn’t object or pull rank. Or comment on his use of “family” instead of “team” or “crew.” They were all still figuring out where they stood on that front. Well, Hardison knew where _he_ stood, but he’d known that for years now. And he knew he didn’t mind when Parker shortcut through an explanation with “because I said so” or when Eliot went to find someone else’s bed for the night. He trusted both of them to do the best they could by him. He just wanted— _needed_ —them to do the best they could for themselves too. Hardison could see both of them struggling and refusing to let him in to help.

So obviously, just when things were reasonably chill, a job had to come along that involved Sterling, Maggie, Dubai, and trafficked animals. Just to set everyone on edge. Again. Great. No way this could go wrong.

Eliot shrugged and went back to making Parker’s milkshake, though he did take Hardison’s ruined phone out first, laying it blatantly on the counter. Just in case Hardison hadn’t gotten the message.

Hardison _had_ obviously, his communication skills were just fine, thanks, but what was he supposed to do about it? It was _Maggie_. Which, really, was the issue here. Pile a heap of shit Eliot hated and stick certain people at the center of it, and he’d come every time. That was Eliot Spencer in a nutshell.

He and Parker would just have to find the best possible job for their hitter on this case.


	3. Chapter 3

Eliot. Russian Root Cellar. Present.

Once, long ways back, he’d done a job on a yacht. Stowaway, with instructions to make it look like an accident _._ He did as requested, listened for the splash, registered the report of a handgun instead, the burning in his hip, and followed his mark, no, his _victim_ , over the side into dark waves to escape. Eliot didn’t remember the rest of that night, apart from a vague awareness that he might have to fight a shark, the way his blood trailed behind him in the water.

He didn’t remember washing up on some rocky beach. He did remember drowning. Not in the sea, but in the surf, each wave scraping him up the beach before dragging him back, seawater filling his nose and mouth, only half remembering to choke back against the brine and grit trying to make its way down his throat. He remembers the chill of the waves, the heat of the sun, and his inability to _move_.

Clinically, there’s a part of his brain that recognizes that memory for what is. In the past. Something survived. He’s not on a beach. He knows that. It’s one of the only things he does know, so he clings to the fact. _Not a beach._ He’s warm and freezing, but this isn’t a beach. He knows that. He feels his awareness dip and roll, but this isn’t that beach. Probably nausea. His breathing isn’t right, and he sucks in a desperate gasp of hopefully air, chokes on the subsequent stab of pain in his lungs, but this isn’t a beach. Broken ribs then?

It’s slow going, forcing reason back into his world. He keeps having to return to the touchstone of not-a-beach. Negatives don’t make for good touchstones of reality, by the way. He needs a positive. _Ha._ Like there are any positives to be found here.

“Eliot? You home?”

 _E.T. phoooone hommmme…_ Wait. Not the alien. Eliot. He’s Eliot.

“Eliot,” the voice says again, firmer now, a confirmation. Okay, he’s Eliot. That’s a positive, he’s pretty sure anyway, though currently being Eliot isn’t working out so great. He likes the voice though. He likes the voice saying his name, parked beside his ear.

Parked. _Parker_. Parker’s here. That’s a positive, only it’s not, because wherever here is, it ain’t anywhere he wants Parker to be.

The air has a musty bite to it as he rations his breath; by all rights he should be shivering, lying on the ground like this, Parker’s voice floating close, too close to make any sense. If he’d managed to get her free—free from where? ... _I’m sorry, the number you dialed is not available—_ she’d have run. She’s here still, tied somewhere as he’s tied—he can feel the weight of the bindings across his chest, pinning him to…something. Pretty stupid, tying ropes on the diagonal like that, over the shoulder and down. It’ll hurt, wriggling free with broken ribs but it’s doable. Survivable. He’ll be able to free Parker.

The ropes tense as he moves against them. They say, “Stop that. You’re being stupid.”

Ropes don’t get to talk to him like that and especially not in Parker’s voice. He tries again.

“OW! Dammit, Eliot!”

He freezes. “Parker?” The thickness of his tongue butchers her name worse than any Boston accent ever did. _Boston?_ It’s been a long time since Boston. 

“Yep.”

Okay, so, not a beach (or Boston), and Parker is here. Two confirmations. Still a question mark next to the rope. _Something_ is holding him down.

She’s talking. He thinks she’s been talking for longer than he’s been listening, which could be why none of the sounds bother resolving themselves into words. “Huh?” It’s more of a grunt than a question. A painful grunt. He adds broken ribs to the confirmation pile. Had he already done that? They seem like old news. Then again, he and broken ribs go way back. Old buddies, him and mutilation of his own ribcage.

“Have you had this cocktail before?” Parker repeats, as if they’re in some too-loud hipster bar with overdesigned alcohol that can’t remember its purpose under all the frills. Parker and Hardison both have bright pink monstrosities with umbrellas, which seems pretty un-hipster, and Eliot just wants a beer. Maybe not a hipster bar then. Portland hipster bars can at least swing the beer. (Portland? That’s after Boston.) Still not a beach. _But umbrellas?_ No. He’s not budging on the nonbeach. He loses that and this sandcastle crumbles under the waves... _dammit._

“Eliot. Stay with me.”

He’s moving, but not getting anywhere, so it should be easy enough for her to keep up, but he ought to reassure her anyway. That he is with her, that he’s not going anywhere, that the undertow on this stupid beach isn’t going to claim him, and she doesn’t need to worry, he doesn’t even want a cocktail. Just some water would be nice. God, he’s _thirsty_. The knowledge slams into his awareness like that random wave that always has to be bigger, saltier, colder than all the others. _Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink._ Also something about an albatross? But there’s no water here, not even salt— _see! Not a beach!_ —Oh. Then he’s the albatross. Flying too high, too high, not enough air, he should drop, plummet like a peregrine down down down down, the whistling of the wind around him, buffeting him—

A hand slaps him in the face. It’s a very distinctive sensation, with a long list of archived memories to back it up, so he’s sure about it. “Eliot! Please wake up!”

Parker’s upset and scared. He doesn’t know why, but he needs to fix that. Later, he’ll return to piecing his own thoughts back together. It can wait. He pulls together enough consciousness to ship words down to his tongue.

“‘M here. ‘S wrong?”

This time she pokes him, hard. It helps, oddly. He’s pretty sure he’s no longer self-identifying as an albatross/peregrine hybrid at least. _The wingspan would be—_ "You’re scaring me.”

“S’rry. Evrthin’s…” he almost says “a beach,” but he’s already established that it’s not. Probably.

“Wibbly-wobbly?” Parker suggests. It’s Hardison’s word, and a stupid one, all the more so for being entirely accurate. If Hardison were here, Eliot would yell at him about it. _Thank fuck Hardison’s not here._

“Yeah.”

“We’re in a root cellar,” Parker says. Eliot clutches the information close to his aching chest. _Root cellar. Not a goddamn beach._ “Where are we?” Parker asks him, which is dumb, because she just _told_ —

“Root cell’r,” he mumbles the words back to her obediently and gets poked in the cheek again as a reward. After the poke, she strokes her hand down his face, as if she’s gone blind and needs to feel him out. _Has she?_ The adrenaline spike at the thought jolts him. _Root cellar. Russians. A pain-in-his-neck tranq. Fuck._

“You can open your eyes, but it won’t do anything,” Parker tells him, having confirmed that he at least had his eyes closed the moment she touched them. _Didn’t I have a blindfold?_ He’s had his eyes closed for much longer, in fact, until she mentioned it. He’d kinda forgotten that might be a useful sense.

It’s not. He keeps them open anyway. It’s harder to get pulled back to the not-a-beach with his eyes open, staring at pitch darkness. His sense of self somewhat solidifies. It isn’t a pleasant sensation. The ribs are definitely an issue, as is whatever’s going on with his throat and lungs that makes him fight his own body for every scrap of oxygen he can muster. It’s probably freaking Parker out. It’s worrying him despite being high as fuck right now and only managing to care in about 30 second increments.

_Never mind all that. Get free._

It’s been a...length of time. Probably. He tries wiggling under the ropes again.

Parker cries out, soft, and bitten off as quick as she can. Fuck. He’s forgotten...something. Something important. The ropes dig into his torso, clench a handful of his jacket—wait. “Your arm!”

“Yeah, Sparky, I have a broken arm, quit thrashing on top of it!”

 _No, the rope is your arm...Two arms. Right. Two arms. One broken. Fuck._ The other arm, previously categorized as possibly sentient rope, pulls him close, his back warm where she’s built herself into his personal pillow.

“Lemme move.” He’s _hurting_ her.

“No,” she says, almost too firmly, then explains. “I should tell you that you can move if you want to. But I’m not going to, because you’re not going to move because you want to, you’re going to move because you like keeping all the hurt to yourself...”

— _Now hang on—_

“...and anyway I think it’s a fair trade off.”

“What is?” he asks, which isn’t what he wants to argue in what she just said, if he’s even clear on what she just said. But he’s got the worst case of drymouth he’s ever experienced, which is saying something, or at least it’s saying a lot more than he’s able to work past his stupid tongue and cracked lips. And if he’s going to die of thirst, he wants to know what Parker, with her peculiar and particular accounting, considers a fair trade off for the pain of having someone a good seventy pounds heavier than her squashing her broken arm.

“Keeping an arm on you,” she replies, and he can tell she feels clever about the answer. Oh right, because it’s fucking jet black in here and their eyes are useless. Her good hand finds his, or maybe the other way around; the important thing is the sensation of her fingers, warm from holding him, wriggle their way into his cold ones and stay there. “You’re still breathing scary,” she says, like that’s more important than her arm. “And I was trying to keep you warm.”

Despite the cold, his skin flushes hot, and—stupidly—he coughs in an attempt to clear the sudden, additional lump in his throat.

Bad idea. Very bad idea. He fucking hates being drugged, for exactly this reason. Actions without a thought to the consequences. Loss of control.

Parker braces him, as his lungs attempt to climb up his esophagus to freedom, violent spasms from the splintered ribs obliterating his side. Fireworks explode in front of his eyes, meld into a giant field of red. He manages to suck in a partial desperate lungful of air only to lose it to the next cough tearing at his throat, and the next, and the next.

Finally, it subsides, leaving him so wrung out he can feel himself slipping sideways, crashing towards the floor, but Parker catches him, reels him back to her, panting. For a moment the only sounds are their breaths, hers rapidfire and his noisily failing to keep up. Eliot wants to sleep for a million years, go back to the beach, submerge himself in the sea. He can feel himself sinking.

Parker kisses him. It’s the deep, warm, blissfully wet kiss he’d spent so long pretending not to dream about, then didn’t have to dream about, and now she’s following up with another and another. All that’s missing is Hardison, watching them with some stupid grin lighting his stupid handsome face. “Better?” Parker asks, lips mumbling against his.

And, yeah. Kissing Parker is always better than not kissing Parker. Initiating a makeout session is a reasonable fix to just about any problem in Eliot’s book, but Parker’s specifically managed to target and resolve both his dry mouth and whatever spasm in his throat triggered the coughing fit. Maybe just by reminding it of a job it actually _likes_ doing.

 _Still here._ It’s all he can claim and has the benefit of being brief.

“Still here?” The ragged remains of his voice betray him. It sounds like a petulant challenge, grating past his teeth. She’s going to hate him for that. For questioning her staying here with him.

Parker tenses beneath him. “Still self-identifying as an asshole?” She rests her chin on the top of his head, a halo keeping him steady. “And yes, I’m right where I need to be. Don’t argue.” Her good arm tightens across his chest, not that he needs it, because his chest is managing to tighten all on its own at her words.

“Didn’ mean it. Like that.” He can feel himself slipping back under. “Got a plan?” He can stay awake for a plan. He won’t leave her alone again. He won’t scare her again. He won’t drop her— 

“Need to know your status.”

Eliot’s current status is coaxing a modicum of oxygen into and out of his lungs without setting off another coughing fit. His current status is discovering his face is buried in Parker’s neck when he goes looking for it, which is definitely not what he told it to do, but _fuck her hair is soft_.

“Don’ worry ‘bout me.”

Parker sighs under him, the sound carrying just a hint of swallowed exasperated scream.

 _I mean it,_ he wants to say _, if you can get out of here, go. Contact Hardison, bring in the cavalry, I’ll be the punching bag, it’s what I do._ She won’t go for it. Not because she’s soft—though her _hair_ —Parker’s not, when she needs to not be. But because it’s a pretty shitty plan. It’s the plan his brain makes when he’s sick and hurt and high. Outlast the fuckers that did it to him. That’s been his general go-to when he’s this deep in shit. But Parker doesn’t think like him.

 _I mean it,_ he wants to say _. I’ll keep up, if you insist on going together. I swear._ She won’t go for that either. Hardison might, because Hardison thinks Eliot can do just about anything, and Eliot wants him to keep thinking that, so when he tells Hardison to run, he’ll do it and not look back, certain Eliot will be there. _One day, I won’t be_. But Parker’s a realist, and also Parker’s the one currently holding him upright.

Parker’s the one who worked her way out of the ropes binding her, freed him, evaluated their predicament (which he hasn’t even asked about), kept him warm and breathing.

“S’rry,” he says. “‘m bein’ a dick. You’re amazin’. I love you.”

“Yes,” Parker agrees, accepting all of it as her due, just as something about what he said triggers alarm bells in his brain. Why, he can’t say. It’s all true. “Eliot, how high are you?”

Less high than...fuck his sense of time is still wibbly-wobbly ( _dammit, Hardison_ ). “How long’s it been?”

“Since you decided to be a giant idiot and get tranqed a second time?” Parker asked, pointedly. “Four hours and twenty-three minutes until you first started rousing. Five hours and nine minutes until now. I think we might have another three hours until they come for us; Talker said we’re waiting on someone named Grigory. He’s expected in the morning.”

Morning on a farm, and he’s pretty sure they’re on a farm, since Parker used the term “root cellar” instead of basement, and he can definitely smell cow, is whenever the cows get milked. It has little to do with the sun or what city people _—_ and Parker is a city person _—_ would consider morning. Then again, this is a farm full of poachers and smugglers, so hell, maybe they sleep in. Either way, he needed to be sober and soon.

Regretfully, he rolls his head out of the warm hollow of Parker’s neck, and tips it back over her shoulder. The blackness around him spins, and he seriously considers how much vomiting right now would suck, but his stomach settles and he can feel his airway widen. Should’ve done this sooner.

“Wasn’t bein’ an idiot,” he tells Parker, aware that arguing with her right now is stupid, but he needs her to understand. “The way they were talkin’—” ( _pretty little thing_ ) “Needed t’ get ‘em focused ‘n me. Give ‘em a target.”

“And you have to be the target.” Parker doesn’t make it a question, but he answers it anyway.

“Yeah. I do. Knew I’d lose the fight, but maybe not the war.” Parker’s arm tightens around him then, her fingers squeezing his. “Tranq had a paralytic—” _Fuck, too many glottals in that sentence—_ the cough triggers, hollow repeated hacks echoing through their prison. It’s not as bad as the last round, but not good either. A knife fight with his own bones. “Water?” he manages when it’s passed and he can tip his head back again, stars swirling through his vision.

“I looked, well, I felt, earlier. Couldn’t find any. There’s a puddle next to me, but—” She’s right, puddles are a last resort. Instead, she kisses him again. Trust Parker to come up with a practical reason to slide her tongue down his throat. Not that he’s complaining. “I’m going to do the talking,” she tells him when she pulls away. “You do the breathing.”

“Mmm.”

“Tranq has a paralytic element and you got shot in the neck twice.”

“Mmhmm.”

“That’s causing more of a problem, breathingwise, than your ribs?”

“Mmhmm.”

“That’s good, since it should wear off. I was shot once in the butt, which mitigated it some. I think they were staking out the conservatory, maybe planning on breaking in, threatening the scientists.”

“Mmmm.”

“But then they saw us heading out, and followed us instead, from a distance.” On that open barely rolling hills below the cliffs, it wouldn’t have been hard, though he hates the fact he didn’t see them. “But why did they have tranq rifles for falcon poaching?”

That, Eliot agrees silently, is a very good question. 

Hardison. Portland. Two days ago.

“So to answer Parker’s question first, it is actually _hella_ hard to find a pure white saker falcon. Sakers or _falco cherrug_ if you’re bein’ all fancy and Latin, are typically mottled white and brown, emphasis on the brown when their flyin’ feathers come in. Before that, they are ugly lil’ fluff butts who spend all their time yellin’.” He brought up a webcam video of a saker falcon nest. Or, rock ledge covered in bird shit and bones, really.

“The sheikh wants _that_?” Parker asked skeptically. And okay, to be fair, the chicks were anything but beautiful, but he’d been keeping this footage up in the corner of his screens while he worked and the little terrors were growing on him.

“They haven’t fledged yet, Parker,” Eliot said, managing to convey both extreme annoyance and patience at the same time. _Edu-_ Eliot. “Falcon chicks are called eyases. After they fledge—get their flyin’ feathers—then they’re passagers.”

 _Who’s doing this briefing?_ Hardison almost complained, but hey, if Eliot was this into falcons, let him nerd out a bit.

“Passengers on what?”

“ _Passagers_ —they still have to make their first migration. Passage.”

Look, so Hardison liked reading and he used to read a lot as a kid, mostly pulp SF/F, because that’s the so-bad-it’s-good shit and there was tons of it at the library. Nana would let him take home _stacks_. Hell, the librarians used to set aside a stack of the stuff they’d weeded, pass it on to him to _keep_. But there’d been another kid in her house for a bit—till he ran away, though Hardison still doubted he’d really been running from Nana, just running before that hypothetical other shoe dropped. Lots of kids were like that. Couldn’t dare trusting anyone to be that good.

Anyway, this other kid, Eric, he’d liked survival stories and he’d not been the greatest at reading. Now, Hardison would guess he’d probably been dyslexic, but Eric had called himself stupid because everyone else always did and kids internalize that crap. He used to have nightmares too. So Hardison would climb out of his top bunk—he loved having the top bunk—and go sit next to Eric. Read whatever book Eric had in progress to him until he fell asleep. He’s not a survival story guy, and Eliot damn well knows what happens when Hardison gets dragged out into the woods, but it’s not like he’s gonna forget the creepy pilot corpse with his eyes getting eaten out by fish in _Hatchet_ (who had the nightmares then, _huh Eric_?) or the peregrine Frightful from _My Side of the Mountain._

Hardison is willing to bet his rather considerable fortune that kid-Eliot had his own dog-eared, half-destroyed copy of that book somewhere in his past. And Eliot being Eliot, he’d have read just about anything he could find on falcons after that. Guy never did anything by halves.

Parker had been leaning forward on the couch, her elbows supporting struts between knees and chin, until Eliot started talking about falcons. She turned to focus on him, all sharp and bright eyed, leaning back until her head found the slight hollow between his shoulder and collarbone. Eliot lifted his arm to accommodate her without seeming to think about it. They still had to do that with El—catch him at the right time and headspace for affection. 

“Well?” Eliot demanded of Hardison. And okay, maybe he’d gotten a little too wrapped up in thinking how nice his two people looked, nestled there together, but _damn_ did he get lucky.

“I thought you were takin’ over this briefing, bird brain!” Hardison teased and told the webcam footage on the screen to fast forward as he too, leaned back. He’d chosen to sit on the other side of Parker, as a visual signal to Eliot that he hadn’t quite forgiven him for the previous phone destruction. Or he _had,_ but Eliot wasn’t supposed to know that yet. Anyway, Eliot still got kinda ansty about cuddling both of them at once, as if he was getting in the middle of somewhere he didn’t belong. For someone so smart, the man could be dumb like that. 

On the TV screen, scraggled fluff gave way to longer, more defined feathers. Hardison, his timing _im-peck-able_ —pun very much intended—paused the footage just as the young adult birds beat their newly fledged wings, stretching muscles that would soon carry them in flight. Most of the falcons had turned dark brown in the interim (and looked damn handsome in their plumage) but one of them had, in trading out its feathers, remained pure white.

“That,” he said, pointing at the paused video, “was yesterday.” Now he definitely had both Parker and Eliot’s attention. “This webcam is hosted by a conservation group in the Altai-Sayan ecoregion. As soon as they realized, they pulled the feed, but since then, and even before, falcon forums started blowin’ up over that bird.” Basic supply and demand he knew _—_ white falcons were hella rare, but still, ain’t nothing wrong with the more standard plumed falcons in that nest. “I’m guessing by now they’ve probably gone and installed a PIT tag on the creature, in hopes of keeping track if any poachers try to grab it, but—”

“—that bird could sell for millions on the black market,” Eliot added.

“And if they captured it to keep it safe,” Parker continued, “they’d be a target.”

Hardison nodded. “An easy one. I’m thinkin’ the sheikh asked for a white falcon because he knew about this one. And if Sophie’s promising her miracles...”

“Then we need to catch it, and we don’t even have a head start.” Parker frowned, considering their options.

Eliot frowned too, for other reasons, Hardison was sure. So far he hadn’t completely nixed the job—which grammar be damned, he’d mentally christened the “Altese Falcon Job,” because _c’mon people_ —so Hardison took that as a good omen. “Nah, but say the word and we’ve got a backdated application for a trio of ornithologists eager to study the bird populations of that region.”

“Too much oversight.” Parker shook her head. “You need access to their closed system, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but we can—”

“So if we make a midnight stop at that conservatory and I patch you in, you’ll be good?” They’d done it before, hundreds of times.

“As long as the signal stays strong, babe.”

“They were hostin’ a live webcam,” Eliot muttered as if Hardison didn’t _know_ that. Obviously they had the capabilities. But this was the Russian steppes. Russia was...Russia.

It took him a moment—because he’d been pondering the weirdness of Russia—to realize what Parker was suggesting. “You don’t want me comin’ with!”

Parker and Eliot shared a Look. It held too much synchronicity and tasted of betrayal. “We need to catch a wild falcon in the middle of nowhere,” Parker began, as if Hardison wasn’t completely aware of how much he and the Russian steppes weren’t likely to mix. He also didn’t _care_ , they weren’t going out there alone. Together. But alone. Without him.

“No, nuh-uh. Absolutely not.” He folded his arms so they’d know he was serious, though he doubted it worked. Unfair. Eliot did it all the time and it worked for _him_. “Y’all ain’t shippin’ me off to Dubai to wait in a hotel room for word on the goddamn bird.”

Eliot raised both eyebrows, like he thought it was cute Hardison arguing the point. And rhyming to boot.

“And if Sophie needs a third?” Parker asked, all too reasonably. It’s not like they hadn’t played the bit before too. “Sophie and Nate are both known faces now.”

“I ain’t happy about this,” he told them.

Eliot snorted. “Join the club.”

Parker rolled her eyes, pulling her legs up on the couch so she could stay leaned against Eliot and poke Hardison’s thigh with her bare toes at the same time. “It’ll be fun. And if we meet any other poachers, Eliot can punch them.”

“And Sterling. When we get to Dubai with the goddamn bird, I’m punchin’ Sterling.”

“Me too.”

Well, okay. If Hardison got to watch Eliot and Parker whale on Sterling together, this whole thing would definitely be worth it. “Hey, how come I never get to punch Sterling?”

Pieterse. Dubai. Three days ago.

Rylond Pieterse liked to think he’d gone straight.

Not for any particular moral reason, but because he considered himself a practical man above all else, and practical men get out before they get caught or killed.

He’d begun _collecting_ as a boy in South Africa. Eggs first, partially for the reward of climbing a tree or cliff, partially because he had a friend, Jordan, to do it with, and mostly because he discovered tourists would pay for the rare eggs, golden contents carefully blown out through pinpricked holes, a process that left him and Jordan beet red and seeing spots as blood pounded in their temples.

Then, some idiot tourist asked if they had any live ones. He wanted to put it in his luggage, see if it would hatch. Jordan and Rylond shared a look that clearly indicated this American was incredibly stupid, then bargained to get him a live egg for a truly exorbitant sum of money. It was the first real money they’d ever had.

Rylond never doubted for a moment that egg died. Probably smashed all over his expensive “safari” clothes.

For a time, he and Jordan made quite the pair, though Jordan always preferred eggs, and Rylond preferred the more traditional route: poaching passagers mid-migration. Wealthy clients—Arabs mostly, an ancient falconry tradition reawakening in the flood of oil money engulfing the region—paid high amounts for birds with their flight muscles and prey drive already strengthened by their interrupted trip south to their wintering grounds.

He found honest work. Not by looking for it particularly hard, but he knew falcons and found himself recommended as a trainer. He was good at it and being a trainer to the upper echelons of Dubai was nothing to sneeze at. Besides, laws were changing, politics were more complicated, and those panda-loving idiots at the WWF were getting too many governments to care about plummeting numbers of endangered species. Not to mention the nightmare that stupid international treaty CITES created. Jordan ended up arrested at Heathrow carrying eggs and incubators, after a trip to some Welsh cliffs, and Rylond decided to just keep his head down. He’d never been caught, might as well keep it that way.

The link appeared in a chain email of all places; sent around the falconry community with the subject line: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: ALTAI-SAYAN WHITE FLEDGLING?!?!

He clicked it open out of curiosity, that was all. Sure, he had a contact in that area of central Asia—an old Russian farmer with mafia connections, provided a holding area for animals until they could be shipped out. Rylond had always used him as a go-between, rather than deal with the mafia directly. Safer that way. Time was, the mafia mostly dealt in furs, considering it too costly and a hassle to traffic live cargo. Times were changing.

The webcam footage—set up by a conservatory group in the area—showed exactly what the subject line promised, for once. Rylond felt his heart speed up. He was out of the game, he had a good gig here, working with Sheikh Rashid, he should…

A voice, too young to be old Kapustin, answered the phone. “ _Da_?”

“It’s Pieterse. Who’s this?”

“Pee-ter-sah? Is Vovan Kapustin. You work with father? He dead.”

Ah. “Are you carrying on the family business?”

“ _Da_. I am. You have job?”

His phone beeped. Sheikh Rashid. “I’ll call you back,” he told Vovan Kapustin and switched to the other call. “Rylond.”

“Yes. About that Interpol agent you found snooping around,” Rashid began. “He and his wife have a...friend, a particularly annoying American demanding he be allowed to give me my wildest dreams in return for their freedom. Have you seen the video of that saker eyas?”

Rylond weighed his options and went for truth. “Just today. It’s quite something.”

“Agreed. What do you think the likelihood is that this brash American could find the bird?”

 _Very low once I finish my other call…_ “Very low. It’s a rugged region. And only one bird.”

“Perfect. If he actually succeeds, I’ll turn him over the authorities along with Maggie Collins and her Interpol husband. I have no interest in supporting poachers.”

“And what will you do with the bird?”

“Keep it of course, it’s a beautiful creature and worth a fortune.”

_Of course._

When he called Vovan back, Rylond passed along this information, to fuel the man’s urgency: “Be on the lookout for Americans. They too are coming to find the bird because of some asshole Interpol agent and his stupid blond bitch.”

“What Interpol look like?”

“Stocky and shouts a lot, but why should you care? That’s our problem. Your problem is finding that damn bird before they do. Start at the raptor conservatory. They’re the ones who hosted that webcam.”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

Rylond hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. He’d not sell the bird to Sheikh Rashid, obviously. He’d sold other smuggled birds to him, using Rashid’s money and influence to purchase forged passports. This bird would obviously be too noticeable. But he had plenty of other clients with quieter consciences. Once he heard back from Vovan, he’d make some calls.

Eliot. Altai-Sayan Ecoregion. One day ago.

“Talk to me about falcons.” Parker matched his pace as they trudged up yet another hill covered in rocks and tufted grass.

“We should keep quiet.” As far as he knew, they were the only people out here in 50 miles, apart from the four ornithologists they’d been careful not to disturb at the Raptor Conservatory, while tapping their system feed earlier for Hardison. Now, thanks to that tap and whatever-the-fuck Hardison’s clever fingers had done with it, they had a location for the previously active webcam. A location it would take them half the night to reach on foot.

“Fine. Whisper to me about falcons,” she hissed, as a demonstration. Given the dim light cast by a waxing gibbous moon, Eliot wasn’t sure if she caught the smile he couldn’t quite stop from spreading. Parker asked him about falcons the same way she’d asked him about food: as if they were picks to unlock something other than for the subject itself. She’d asked about food to learn how to appreciate something. At least, that’s what she’d admitted to. He still wasn’t sure why the falcons, aside from the fact that she was about to scale a cliff and steal one.

He’d told her a few things on the flight over, mostly about different ways to trap a falcon, though if they were lucky, this one wouldn’t have taken that step off the ledge before they got there. Another good reason to get there before dawn, have Parker make the climb while they were snug on their ledge.

“Sakers don’t build nests,” he said finally. He couldn’t rid himself of the sense that they were being watched, though he’d seen no evidence to suggest it. _Get it together, Spencer_. “Sometimes they’ll take over an abandoned nest, but they also roost on cliff ledges. They like high places.”

“Like me!” She bounce-skipped a few steps ahead. “What else?”

“Like most falcons, the females are larger than the males—so they’re usually considered more valuable to falconers. Males are called tiercels.”

“What are females called?”

He shrugged under his pack. “Falcons. An’ _saker_ is just the Arabic word for ‘falcon’.”

“Do you think it’s bad, what we’re doing?”

Eliot wished she’d stayed on the topic of falcons. At least he had answers there. “It’s for a good reason.”

“Do you think she’ll be happy? Alec was showing me captive birds in the UAE that fly in the cabin of planes. And they have special retrofit cars for them too.”

Eliot snorted. So that’s what Hardison did after he took off the other night. And okay, so he didn’t want him or Parker asking what _he’d_ been off doing, but that was his own goddamn business wasn’t it.

It’d been all right, as far as one-night stands went. Her name was Andrea. Or Angela? Fuck. He hated forgetting. He never used to forget. Not until—

They’d had a good time. Better than he would have had, listening to Hardison try to justify this to Parker.

_Right. Just keep telling yourself that._

He shifted as he walked, trying to resettle his pack on twitching shoulder blades. “I think she’s gonna get caught whether it’s us or someone else, and we’re a better bet for smuggling her safely.”

Parker sighed. “I know.” She paused until he’d closed the distance between them again, brushing her shoulder against his. “How do you tame a falcon?”

He’d never actually done it, just read plenty on the subject, but the question put him back on more solid ground. “Hoods, jesses, an’ bait. The hood keeps ‘em calm, because they’re creatures of sight, and they get excited by what they can see.”

“What are jesses?”

“Leather ties on their ankles. They don’t get in the way, but it’s something for th’ falconer to hold on to when the bird’s perched on their arm. The bird wants to hunt, so they toss bait on a lead, get it to fly and take it down, then give it a different piece of meat to release its ‘prey.’”

“She should get to keep both!” Parker sounded so indignant he almost laughed.

“If you were my falcon, I’d let ya.” He winced the moment the words were out. She did remind him of a falcon, sharp eyes and claws, always ready to soar. But she didn’t belong hooded and jessed any more than this bird they were after.

 _And you?_ He’d spent enough time following orders on a need-to-know basis. _There’s your target. Take them out. Don’t ask questions._ He didn’t want anyone holding him down ever again.

 _But last week, when Al_ —Hardison— _pinned you, his whole body shining_ _above_ —he tripped over a rock hidden in a tuft of grass and nearly fell, but Parker caught his shoulder, steadying him. “Just a stumbin’ block, uh, rock. Stumbled on a rock.” _Shut your mouth up now, Spencer_.

See, this was what happened. Kept happening, for all his practice at shoving shit that he didn’t need away. He couldn’t stop coming back to the way Parker’s smile lit up her whole face like a sun rising, starting from her mouth and climbing into her eyes. Hardison and the way he always seemed to know exactly what Eliot was thinking, even when Eliot would _really_ prefer he just be a goddamn idiot about shit for once. He and Parker were out in the middle of the Russian steppes for godsakes. No reason at all to be thinking about Hardison.

 _And if anyone were to hood and hold you…_ the thought turned his stomach, unpleasantly at first, then erupting into butterflies.

“Ooh, can we play with ropes and handcuffs next time?” Parker asked, as if she’d been reading the thoughts he was trying very hard not to have. She did not say: _Next time you break down and come crawling back because you can’t resist. Even if it’s the worst idea you’ve ever had._ She didn’t have to. Eliot was thinking it plenty loudly all by himself.

He knew they were both confused by his…conflict over this. Parker’s said as much, and Hardison didn’t need to, his face every time Eliot stalked out the door was plenty. It ain’t fair to them, the way he’s been acting, running hot and cold on this _thing_ that’s been building since before Nate and Sophie left. Since the day he met both of them, probably. Back when he had _rules_ and actually kept them. _Don’t sleep with your crew_.

 _That_ ship had long since sailed.

“We ain’t—” he said, well aware that they will, in fact.

“You always say that.” He could hear the pout in her voice. “I’ll be your falcon. Oh! We can use a harness and rope and—what’s it called when they drop out of the sky?”

“Parker—”

“A stool?”

“ _Are you serious?_ A stoop, Parker, it’s called a stoop. That’s peregrines. Fastest animal on earth. Hits its prey so fast the critter is stunned or killed instantly.”

Parker turned to face him, eyes serious. “Listen. It’ll be great. We can call it ‘Peregrine Took’! That sounds really familiar and I’m pretty sure it’s an Alec-nerd thing so he’ll love it regardless because it involves me and you and no clothes and I get to steal things while swinging on a rope. Also, blindfolds.” 

“Parker—”

“You’re only a falcon if you want to be, Eliot.” She nodded, pleased, and continued walking as Eliot tried to make his brain stop sputtering and stalling like the beat up pickup he’d had his first time in. (And the fact that he’d make that thing stall at particularly opportune, _oh-darn-guess-we’re-stuck-for-the-time-bein’_ moments was coming back to haunt him right about now.)

“What kind of falcon would you be?” she asked when he’d failed to make words happen in his mouth for several minutes.

“Dunno.” He liked peregrines, always had since that book he’d read as a kid, but no fucking way was he mentioning _that_ option after Parker’s brainstorm. He knew who Peregrine Took was and could imagine, in high definition, the full gallery of expressions Hardison will go through when Parker invariably introduced him to her new “game.” Which sounded ridiculous. And hot. And fun. Eliot narrowly avoided tripping over another particularly cunning rock. “Gyr.”

“ _Grrrrrr_?” Parker giggled.

“Gyr _falcon_ ,” he, okay yes, he _growled_ the word. “Bigger, more powerful than a saker or peregrine. Tends to be an aggressive asshole.”

 _Sometimes they mate with sakers. Peregrines too,_ supplied his traitor of a brain. He slammed that door shut.

“If it’s called a gyrfalcon...then what’s a gyr?”

 _Every time God shuts a door, he opens a window,_ Eliot’s ma used to say, and currently, that window bangs open on an old Yeats poem he’d memorized back in junior year of high school. Funny how shit like that never left, even when he wished it would.

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_

_The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_

_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_

_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_

_The best lack all conviction, while the worst_

_Are full of passionate intensity._

At the time, he'd thought it sounded badass and cool. Now it felt like an omen.

“Dunno.” He made the word sound harsh and final. “Quit askin’ so many questions.”

Parker called Hardison to check in on the sat phone when they reached the base of the cliff. “Hike was good, until Eliot started self-identifying as an asshole,” she told him blithely.

That hurt more than it should have, given it was the truth. He couldn’t hear Hardison’s response, though Eliot could make a guess he was saying something both sweet and snarky to reassure her. He moved off a few steps, to give them some privacy and start setting things up.

“Want to talk to Alec?” Parker called softly.

“He got anything relevant to say?” Eliot countered. “Jus’ wanna get this done.” _When we get home, I’m ending this. Not the team, obviously, but it ain’t healthy, me crashin’ their relationship just cause… cause…_

Parker hesitated, watching him, then shrugged. “Call you back when we have the bird,” She said into the phone. “Kisses!”

 _That_ was Hardison’s doing. "Kisses." Lovenames. All that crap. It felt cloying and claustrophobic. Corny as hell. “Never figured you for that kind of sign off,” he said, yanking on the strap to tighten his harness harder than strictly necessary. _This is a terrible conversation to be having while cinching straps around your junk, Spencer._

“He likes it.” Parker made clambering into a harness look effortless, efficiently tightening the same straps he was still wrestling with in half the time.

“An’ you play along.” _Stupid fucking—_

She sighed, came over, and untangled a strap he hadn’t noticed was twisted. Fuck, he hated harnesses. “I like that he likes it. Makes me all warm and fizzy. Like jumping off a building.”

Of course, that was her response to leaping off a building. “Never been a fan.”

“You know how,” she says impatiently, and Eliot was suddenly unsure if they were talking about saccharine sendoffs or plunging off buildings. Or both, which just about figured for any Parker/Hardison conversation he barged into. Should have learned by now to keep out of it. Completely. Like he’d been regularly failing to do. Not that Parker checking the straps around his groin was helping matters _at all_.

“Ain’t my style,” he managed, since it covered both bases. _This is why. This is why it won’t work._ “Don’t like harnesses.” There, least now they’re back on professional-Parker territory.

Her eyes held almost too much understanding. “Yeah, sometimes they pinch. Hurt things they shouldn’t. Some are trash. But some just need adjustment. I’ve made my own for years, but Alec helps now, even though he hates what they’re used for. He likes knowing I’m safe.” She gave Eliot a quick smile, as if her impromptu lecture on harnesses hadn’t just felt like a load-bearing rope getting cut. “Kiss for luck?”

 _She was just talking about harnesses. Nothing more. You’re the one so tangled up, you’re stickin’ meanings where none belong._ “You don’t need luck,” he said, the words familiar and oddly comforting. A script they’d been following for a while now.

She stepped forward, gloved fingers cupping the side of his face, catching in his hair. The kiss itself was a swift, sweet thing, a brief connection in the still dark. He couldn’t deny it to her, no matter his fears. _Therein lies the rub_. That whatever they asked, he’d give, and he was so fucking scared it wouldn’t be enough and too much and on the way down he’d lose himself and them and he couldn’t decide which was worse because he already knew.

“Ready to belay me?”

“Always.” 

“On belay.”

“Belay on.”

“Climbing.”

“Climb on.”

He watched her swarm silently and swiftly up the rock. She placed a few anchors as she went, calling instructions as quietly as possible to avoid disturbing the nest above her.

In the west, the sky lightened, more distinct noises echoing through the cliffs and across the sloping grass. The wind picked up too whistling against the rocks and concerning Eliot, though it didn’t seem to bother Parker.

Finally, she stopped, well above her last anchor point, and difficult to see in the gloom. Thanks to the moon, they hadn’t needed headlamps until now, and he hadn’t thought to pull one out of his pack before she began the climb.

_Trust her._

A cacophony erupted in the murk above him. “Got her!” Parker called. “Take!”

“I have you!” He shouted now, not caring about silence.

“Ready to lower!”

“Lowering!” he answered, feeling the rope jerk in his hands as she dropped, fearless, to her last anchor.

Eliot heard a crack— _not a rifle, or shotgun...tranq gun?_ —and something sunk into the side of his neck. He swiped at the dart, but whatever it was loaded with contained a powerful sedative. He could already feel his knees buckling.

“PAR—”

Her scream echoed after him into the dark.

Sterling. Dubai. One day ago.

Four days. Sterling had started shouting at the servants who came to bring them meals on the first day, and he would have continued if Maggie, in a tone of absolute finality, hadn’t given him a level glare and simply said: “Stop.” She demonstrated how by refusing to speak to him for the next 24 hours.

No, that wasn’t entirely accurate, though Margaret Collins’s cold shoulder could give Siberia pause. She’d spoken to him for practical matters, perfectly polite and well-mannered until his teeth ached with it. If she’d been petty enough to give him the silent treatment he’d have had something to work with. But what was a cold war with one participant?

A disinformation campaign against yourself, that’s what. Just an elaborate lie that only you fell for.

After hours spent locked in the tiny, cramped room, they were politely escorted to another, larger suite that included a double bed and a bathroom. He made loud demands of course, and was met with blank stares, whether delivered in English or Arabic. Maggie laid a hand on his arm. “Will you please translate?” Then, in careful, measured tones, asked essentially the same questions: When could they talk to the Sheikh? When would they be released? Could they make a phone call? What was for dinner that night?

The last one caught him by surprise, and their guard too, his placid expression breaking into a quick smile before he caught himself. “I only know arrangements are being made,” the guard told her, through his translation, and apologized for not having any further answers to give. Maggie forgave him.

The guard, obviously. She certainly hadn’t forgiven _Sterling_. Also, what arrangements?

In their new rooms, Sterling busied himself by going over every inch, looking for cameras and bugs. Nothing.

Maggie ignored him, choosing instead to study the paintings decorating the walls—they hadn’t been imprisoned in a dungeon by any means—and made sketches of her own on a pad of paper and pencil she found in a drawer.

He started talking to her, almost out of habit, a thousand times and each time, she somehow managed to ignore him harder, while murmuring quiet indications that she was listening. It was quite the talent. _How did Ford handle that ability?_ The thought slipped in, before he could block it. The type of nagging asshole comment he liked to slide into other people’s awareness, but it had no place in his own mind. Nathan Ford had lost Maggie Collins, through his own choices.

_And right now, you’re doing so much better._

Jim Sterling hated admitting he’d been wrong, and so he didn’t. _Because I’m not._ His contacts had sent him images of the forged passports and papers of falcons owned by the sheikh, decorated with his signature. Not enough to flag, of course, not for such an illustrious personage. Interpol needed proof. Enough proof to outweigh the money involved. Mountains of proof, then.

_Maybe I can flip the trainer._

Doubtful. Rylond Pieterse had been the one to discover him rifling through files he had no business looking at, asking “Find anything good, then?” in that Afrikaans drawl of his, before frog-marching him into the dining room where Sheikh Rashid and Maggie sat discussing art and his newest purchase.

 _Wait. What if it is the trainer?_ He’d looked at Pieterse as a suspect in his initial investigation but hadn’t found any evidence that specifically indicated him. Yes, he traveled in the correct circles and had opportunities, but he’d also been a vocal proponent of breeding and other legal avenues for bolstering the falcon population. _So was Sheikh Rashid. And didn’t Pieterse have a friend, years back, who was arrested for smuggling falcon eggs?_ He’d noted that too, why had he dismissed it?

Because the moment he’d started poking around his boss instead, doors had begun to slam shut. With that dull thud that promised something was in fact behind them. Sterling _hated_ closed doors. Maggie said he was like a cat that way.

“What if it’s not your sheikh?” he said aloud, just to try it out.

Maggie, miraculously set down her pad and answered in something other than a polite attentive sound. “I don’t care.”

Not quite what he’d been hoping for, but at least it was a response. “I was thinking it might be the falcon trainer—Pieterse. He has the same access, probably even more when it comes to acquiring the birds.” The more he thought about it, the more this felt like an opening. “Not to mention, Pieterse had a friend way back, something Jordan? They grew up in South Africa together. Man’s been picked up several times at the airport, trying to smuggle falcon eggs out of the country. No record for Pieterse but that didn’t mean he’s never been involved.” _Doesn’t mean he has been either. Nate’s has a childhood friend who’s now a priest for godsakes._ He didn’t mention this to Maggie. For obvious reasons.

Maggie sighed. “If this is you apologizing, you’re burying the lede.”

“I’m saying, you could be right and it’s not your sheikh!”

“That is _so_ not the poi—” She cut herself off, turned back to her sketching. “I don’t care,” she repeated, just for the extra emphasis.

“Bollocks to that, of course you care,” Sterling heard himself snap impatiently. _Damn._ Too late now to stuff the words back in, even if they were true. Only thing to do was double down. “That’s why you’re angry, admit it.”

“No. That is not why, _James_.”

“Oh, not at me, I _know_ why you’re pissed at me. I got us in this mess, you’ve every right to be angry with me.” Maggie’d gone still, as he just… blurted that out, admitted his culpability. He didn’t do that for just anyone, she had to know that. “No,” he continued, since she’d said nothing, “that’s why you’re angry with yourself. You do care! You care that your instincts might have been wrong. That you trusted the wrong person. Again.”

The sketchpad dropped to the couch she’d claimed and made perfectly clear he wasn’t welcome to share with her. Both of their eyes followed it as Maggie spoke. “Just because I don’t mistrust everyone I meet—” She stopped. Shook her head. Started again. “I work hard. I don’t mean at my job. I work hard to trust people. Give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ve—I know what I’ll become if I don’t. If I give into all the suspicions and shadows and rumors. You think this is naivete? That I don’t know any better? That I’ve never been burned before? Did you really make that judgment call?”

He opened his mouth to interject and thought better of it as she took a shaking breath to continue. “Does it hurt less? When you assume the worst and are repeatedly proven right? Does the _validation_ make it all better? If I _trust_ everyone I meet and work with to be awful, to have an agenda, to be _conning_ me, am I going to be happy?” She dashed tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m just trying so hard to be happy, James. It’s just about the biggest _fuck you_ to the universe that I can think of. That despite everything, I _will_ be happy.”

 _Why the fuck are you with me then?_ He wants to ask her. Since when has he made anyone happy? _Ever_?

“I am sorry.” It’s not enough, not for the hubris he was attempting to apologize for, which far outweighed the slight matter of getting them imprisoned in a place even Parker seemed to be hesitant to break into. “You deserve better than that.”

“If you say _better than me_ , I will hit you,” Maggie informed him. “It’s a transparent ploy.”

 _Not a ploy if it’s true_. He struck it off the future record regardless. “I only meant—I failed to consider all angles of the situation.” Understatement.

“No kidding.” She sniffed, scrubbed her eyes dry, smoothed her hair, the motions following the semiautomatic habits of ritual.

 _Tuck the tears out of sight and fuck the universe that sought them._ They certainly have different approaches, but basically the same outcome. “I might be in love with you,” he said. Also an understatement. “That’s not a ploy. Or a con.”

“Good. I don’t let just anyone see me cry.” She doesn’t give him the out of echoing the sentiment. Instead, she rubbed her hands back and forth along the plush velvet edge of sofa, then tapped it decisively and stood. “And I’m done now. Speaking of ploys, I do have one. Translate for me?”

“Of course.” He showed his teeth when he smiled at her. Olivia used to call it his alligator grin. When she was young, and not yet the serious, evaluating young woman she’d become.

Maggie summoned their guard and demurely—that was the only word for it—requested that if they were to be kept in here, surely the sheikh would not begrudge them their clothes? These were starting to smell. And she had a bag of toiletries in her suitcase. If not the clothes, could they at least bring that? She had...feminine issues to take care of.

Sterling stammered a bit over the last part, both he and the guard reddening as Maggie looked on, eyes barely downcast. The guard hurriedly promised to see what he could do.

Hours later, their luggage, clearly searched, arrived at their suite. Maggie tossed aside clothes without the slightest glance rummaging until she found her toiletry bag.

“If something’s the matter,” Sterling began. He hadn’t actually thought she’d cared about the bag, just using it to make the request seem more innocent.

Maggie smirked at him. “Oh, this is my secondary kit. I always carry it just in case. I didn’t want to mention it before now, since you’ve admittedly not been thinking things through, but that guard said ‘arrangements are being made,’ which means my ex-husband is out there about to do something convoluted and stupid.”

“Well, it _is_ Nate.”

“Yes, and I have a type.” She held up the bag. “Parker gave me this.”

He felt himself grinning and then that wasn’t enough; the laughter burst out. “Then, my dear, I think it’s time we made some plans of our own.”


	4. Chapter 4

Parker. Russian Root Cellar. Present.

Eliot’s breathing easier by the time she finishes explaining Plan B. It still sounds bad: an alternating two-tone whistle and wheeze as he drags at the damp air, but at least it’s regular. Parker half-expects him to argue about her decision—if Hardison were here, he’d _definitely_ be arguing—but he just asks, “Signal?”

Signal. For if everything goes bad. For if she needs him to burst in and be Eliot Spencer. He hadn’t asked for one in Plan A, in which they’re kept in the same room. She’s more worried about Plan A. Eliot can be very proprietary about pain.

“We need a getaway car, exit route, and that bird. Oh and anything you can get for Hardison to destroy these guys. That’s a long shopping list. Just come pick me up when you’re done.” In Plan A...if they go, they go together. She kisses him on the temple. “Don’t go till you’re ready.”

“Don’t provoke them,” Eliot responds, as if either of them have much choice in the matter. But they do, that’s the thing. There’s always a choice. “Any straight... sticks around? Splint your... arm.”

There are, she’d found the pile during her tour around their prison when she’d first descended into the dark. “Too much?”

He rocks his head back and forth on her shoulder. “Tell’ em... you did it... very Russian.”

“‘Kay, I need to move then.” She pushes him forward, gently, Eliot carefully bracing his arms on his knees as she extricates herself. Legs stiff, her butt and other parts tingling as blood flow returns. She doesn’t want to think about the arm.

The arm. It’s hers, she has to claim responsibility for it, even if it is broken and useless. Of course, the moment she acknowledges it, the stupid thing hurts ten times more, making her head swim and steps falter as she feels her way to the pile. Old lumber of all sizes attempts to poke splinters into her fingers, but her calluses deflect them. Parker chooses two wide, flatish pieces, short enough that they won’t have to be broken. And a third piece, for insurance.

She finds Eliot again by the rasped whine of his breath. If Alec were here, he’d be freaked out by that sound. _You can’t ask this of him, babe_ , _Parker. It ain’t fair._ Parker hands him her own worry to hold on to—her good hand is full—but otherwise forces herself to ignore him. _When we’re back with you, I’ll let you cuddle and coddle us all you want. You’re right to worry, and you’re better at it than I am._

Except she’s the mastermind now. She has to be good at worrying, but not so good that it stops her.

Eliot’s kneeling, sagged against the post, but when Parker reaches out to feel for him, he straightens under her hand. She kneels too, feels the mud start working at the fabric of her pants.

“Give it here.” He means the arm, but also the wood, and the rope that had tied their hands. She passes it all over, shivering slightly as he runs his fingers lightly over the break. Not compound, thankfully, but it’s not aligned right.

No warning, just the firming of his grip and a _pull_. Parker sees white, then red, her ears roaring as the splintered edges of the bones realign. By the time she returns to herself, panting, Eliot is wedging her arm between the two boards. She takes over, holding them in place as he winds the rope around until everything is as tight and taut as he can make it.

“Better?”

She hears the rub of his coat as he lists sideways against their shared post. “Yes.” Back in her makeshift blindfold sling it goes.

“Good.”

They might be punished, when the smugglers pull them out, see what’s become of the ropes and blindfolds. It’s worth it, just for the warmth in Eliot’s voice right then.

Sometimes, when you’re hurting, fixing someone else is the only thing that helps.

"Kiss for luck?" she asks him.

She’d gone to Eliot, back when Hardison had first started the tradition, before it was a tradition, and it caught her off guard for too many reasons to sort through on her own. She’d snapped at him that she didn't need luck, insulted and confused as Hardison backed off, apologized, didn’t ask again, but Parker had a feeling she’d been the one in the wrong. Or at least, not as squarely in the right as she preferred to be. So, she’d gone looking for help.

“On that reservation casino job, a few weeks ago, Hardison asked me for a kiss for luck,” she’d said, perching on one of the barstools next to where Eliot was carefully peeling apples, his small, sharp knife creating a long twist of ribbon. It slipped slightly on the word _kiss_ , nicking into the flesh of the apple.

“I’m not having this conversation with you, Parker,” Eliot growled, as he always did when she came to him with questions involving Hardison and kissing. Or relationship advice in general. Which was funny, because Eliot was good at kissing (at least the women she’d watched kissing Eliot seemed to think so) and usually Eliot liked teaching the things he was good at.

Parker approached this conversational speedbump the way she approached all speedbumps: by hitting the gas. How else were you supposed to get any air? “Well, I tried to ask Sophie first, but she wasn’t answering her phone and when I peeked through her window I saw more of Nate than I—”

“I’m DEFINITELY not having _THAT_ conversation, Parker.” The apple, fully peeled, slammed onto the surface of the bar with a bit too much force. “I’ve got stuff I need to get done.” She stole the twist of peel, stuck an end of it in her mouth and started nibbling. It tasted both sweet and bitter. Wait, that was a taste word: Bittersweet. She liked that, the way something could be two things at once. People could be like that too, and it’d taken her a long time to learn that, but now it finally had started making sense.

Eliot would say things about not having conversations, and not caring about their relationship, and having more important things to do. But Sophie’d taught her how to wait it out, and Parker was good at waiting. The long twisting peel swung as she rested her chin on her hands and watched him pick up another apple. “What's so bad about askin’ for a…” he left the question dangling.

Eliot had asked for a kiss for luck that job too. Not from her of course, or Hardison, who’d forbidden her from telling Eliot that they’d talked about kissing him and more. No, Eliot had asked for a lucky kiss from the pretty woman he’d been flirting with all night at the craps table, as part of the Texan oil man character he was playing. Hardison, on the roof with Parker, had watched through the security feed as Parker checked the straps on his harness. She didn't complain about him being distracted by Eliot and the beautiful woman wearing curls, pearls, and a dress too tight to stash anything. Giving Hardison a phone to watch Eliot flirt was a lot like giving a guard dog a full jar of peanut butter before jumping into their territory. Made her job easier. Until he’d turned to her and asked for the same. Then it bothered her, even though she liked kissing Hardison. She wasn’t the beautiful woman Eliot was flirting with, Hardison wasn’t Eliot, and all of that tangled in his question like twisted harness straps and badly wrapped rope.

She bit off the peel, let the rest drop to the bar. “I don’t need luck! I know what I’m doing!” More knotted rope there.

Eliot’s expression flickered in surprise. “Figured you were complainin’ it was unprofessional.” Oh, right. That too.

She shrugged, as if that last didn’t matter. “You kiss people on jobs all the time,” she pointed out, because Eliot was a professional, even if there was that one time he’d made out with the country music girl while Nate was getting roughed up. But that was ages back, and she’d screwed up worse. It happened.

“Not all the—” he shook his head and didn’t to bother finish his defense. “Which part bugged you? The kiss or the way he asked?”

“Not the kiss,” she decided. “But we don’t need luck. If we need luck to get us through a job, then we’re all going to die. Or get arrested.”

“Then tell him that and give him the damn kiss!” He snapped, too loud, though the Brewpub was closed and Hardison was upstairs, headphones on, involved in some all-night orc raid. Why Eliot was still here, peeling apples at three in the morning, Parker didn’t try to ask. She had better luck getting him to talk about kissing, though that was going pretty well, despite the shouting. _See? I don’t need luck._ “He’s looking for a connection,” Eliot continued, quieter. “And probably reassurance since you were about to shove him off a building. You know he hates that. But he loves you. He’ll do anything you ask him to.” He’d forgotten about the apples, and mostly about the knife, from the way it sat, still and loose in his fingers. Usually anything in Eliot’s fingers got flipped, twisted, and twirled.

“He will, won’t he.” She didn’t make it a question, or specify who she meant.

“Yes,” Eliot answered, and the word sounded bittersweet as it fell off his tongue.

Now, he doesn’t have time to answer that she doesn’t need luck, like he usually does. There are footsteps and voices approaching. Parker finds Eliot in the dark, and they haul each other upright, her half-guiding, half-dragging Eliot back to where she’d originally found him, sprawled at the foot of the rough steps. Eliot drops to his knees, breathing loud and angry as she follows him, good arm offering support as he lays flat on his back. There’s no time, but Parker spins a few seconds from the dark around them and answers her own question, bending over Eliot to kiss him soundly, one more time.

“Need all the luck we can get,” Eliot mutters against her lips, then nudges her away. She climbs up a step or two and sits there, listening to the lock rattle above her. In the sleeve of her good arm sits her third length of wood. She brushes her fingertips against it and smiles.

_I’ll make my own luck._

Hardison. Dubai. One day ago.

Humans can’t multitask.

Hardison had almost told Nate this a thousand and one times over the years they’d worked together—and yes, it was _together,_ they were a _team_ dammit, no matter what booze-infused high horse of self-righteousness Nate had been riding at the time.

He’d once signed himself up for a randomized controlled trial testing the human capability to multitask, which possibly made the trial a bit less random, but he’d been curious about his results—easy hack to access the non-anonymized data—and anyway, “unbiased” scientific studies had plenty of worse representation sins to answer for. He’d more than likely unskewed their results and they should thank him for it.

Those results matched all the other research he’d done on the subject: Humans can’t multitask. Even him. Though maybe Parker. Hardison wouldn’t place any bets against Parker, _nuh-uh_.

What humans did, including him, _albeit it better than most people_ , was rapid switch-tasking. Juggling. And yeah, he was good at it. Very good. The best, probably. Over the past forty-eight hours he’d found out exactly where Parker and Eliot needed to go, set up transportation and communications (earbuds would be spotty, so they had sat phone backup), got himself to Dubai, met up with Nate and Sophie, and the bugs Nate had already planted when he’d visited the sheikh, caught up on all the audio collected by said bugs which told him nothing, dug through the sheikh’s finances (ongoing, he was a goddamn member of the royal family, this shit would take a forensic accountant with full access _years, people! years!_ ), kept regular check-ins with Parker and Eliot out in the middle of the Russian steppes, maintained and expanded the background on Nate and Sophie’s aliases, and now, on a hunch, he’d begun taking a closer look at that falcon trainer, Rylond Pieterse, just to cover all the bases. Oh, and as a side project/present for Eliot, he’d been running a side-job tracking down sellers of smuggled animals using their social media posts and passing the information on to the authorities of multiple countries throughout the region. Got some hacker friends in on the action too, just to keep things from getting too overwhelming. 

Pretty standard set of balls to juggle during a job, really.

Which was why he had no fucking excuse for the ball he dropped. The only ball that mattered.

“They’re probably caught up in trying to catch a particular falcon,” Nate said, when Hardison, pit of his stomach dropping faster than Parker down an elevator shaft, announced that they hadn’t made their check in. “Try again in an hour and in the meantime, I need those financials, Hardison.”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for, Nate!”

“Irregularities, large sums of money, you know the drill. I shouldn’t need to hold your hand—”

“He’s a _sheikh_. Part of the royal family. Their entire existence is irregularities involving large sums of money! This ain’t a needle in a haystack situation!”

“Sterling found—”

“Forged falcon passports, I know. Could be whoever sold him certain birds. Could be the trainer, pocketing the extra. They ain’t exactly _hard_. He’d sent Parker and Eliot off with a beautiful forgery already matching the falcon they were after. _One in the hand is worth…_ he shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Quoting _Star Wars_ isn’t going to help,” Nate clapped him on the shoulder. “Give them an hour.”

He did.

And another.

And another.

And another.

“Something’s wrong.” He couldn’t stop the drumming of his fingers on the desk, running counterpoint to his bouncing knee.

Sophie, back from her errand stalking Pieterse around the falcon markets in the mall (cause you could buy a falcon in the _mall_ in friggin’ Dubai) until she’d managed to get close enough to clone his phone, pursed her lips in worry. “I think you may be right.” She held out the headphones she’d been using to listen in on the falcon trainer’s calls.

“I don’t care about that right now, Soph.”

“You will.” She stood, walked the short distance between them to place the headphones in his hands. “Play it out loud. Nate, you should hear this too.”

_“Any news?”_

_“We have bird.”_

_“Excellent.”_

_“And man and woman. From Interpol.”_

_“...What man and woman?”_

_“Stocky man. Blond bitch. You say from Interpol, yes?”_

_“Uh, right…”_

Hardison frowned and glanced up to find Nate and Sophie’s expressions a mirror of his own. Pieterse sounded as confused as they all felt.

_“We have. You pay?”_

_“For the bird, yes. I’ll arrange the sale, upon its safe delivery to Dubai.”_

_“Route bad. Many arrests. You come. Get bird.”_

_“...Fine. I need proof. To show the buyer.”_

_“Of course. And Interpol?”_

_“Ransom them, kill them, I don’t give a fuck.”_

The call ended.

“Stocky man? Blond... _woman_? Interpol?” Hardison’s knee drummed so hard it banged against the underside of the desk. _Ow_. “Are we sure Sterling an’ Maggie ain’t bein’ held by Russian mobsters?”

“Can you track the call?” Nate asked, voice inscrutable.

“Too short, and even if it wasn’t, it’s a burner, I’ll bet you anything.”

Sophie huffed in agreement. “Russians.”

“But I can see what Pieterse’s doin’ on his end.” At least getting his fingers back on the keys gave them something useful to tap at. “Buyin’ a plane ticket to Gorno-Altaysk. Same place I sent Eliot and Parker. Closest civilization to where they were headed.” He found Nate’s gaze and held it. “I’m gettin’ on that plane.”

“And doing what, Hardison?”

“I don’t know! But it’s a sixteen-hour flight, so I’ll have some time—”

A hurried knock interrupted him.

“I didn’t order room service, did you?” Sophie asked.

The second knock rapped out a particular rhythm, though none Hardison recognized. Nate apparently did, leaping up and hurrying for the door. “Maggie?!”

Look. He couldn’t begrudge Nate the relief and joy in his voice, or Sophie’s exclamations. He couldn’t not rise, hug a suspiciously smoky-smelling Maggie, match glares with Sterling, casually shift back to his computer for a quick search of news stories involving a certain sheikh’s palace and some homemade incendiary devices, scrub all CC-TV footage of the two of them entering and moving through the hotel to their suite.

“Tell us everything!” Sophie encouraged, probably to head off the way Nate and Sterling were circling each other like dogs before a fight.

Maggie, rather than doing that, turned to Hardison. “Hardison, if you’re here— where’s Parker? Her...ahh _toiletries_ got us out.” She frowned at the sudden silence. “And Eliot?”

 _Because if he was here, he’d be punching Sterling right about now. That was the plan, anyway._ Hardison considered punching Sterling for Eliot, but what was the point if they couldn’t watch?

Sterling shifted as if he knew his thoughts. “They’re off on some convoluted plan of yours, Nate?”

“I needed something to trade. Al Falasi asked for a white falcon.”

“Oh!” Maggie inhaled sharply. “That was your plan? Frame him with a smuggled falcon?”

“Plan went to shit.” Hardison coughed to cover the burn in his throat. _Stocky man. Blond woman. Interpol._ “I’m flying out in a couple of hours. To Gorno-Altaysk. The Russians have them. Somehow.” _And they think they’re something else._

“You still don’t—” Nate began, but before Hardison could start yelling at him about how he didn’t care if he didn’t have a plan, or if he was just marching in blind because he wasn’t _leaving them_ any more than Nate could have left Maggie, or even fucking Sterling, as annoying as he was… Maggie interrupted.

“We’re coming with.” _That_ started a whole new round of yelling, but she just folded her arms and waited for them to all be quiet. “It’s not like staying in Dubai is all that advisable, now is it?”

“Agreed,” Sophie nodded, slinging an arm around Maggie’s shoulder.

“No, it isn’t!” Nate and Sterling both yelled, but they’d already lost. Badly, since they were agreeing with each other. Nate sighed and gave Hardison a nod. _The plan is...we’ll come up with a plan on the plane._

“Okay y’all, let’s go steal our hitter and our thief.”

Grigory Aleksándrovich Toporov. Kapustin’s Farm. Present.

He’d arrived less than fifteen minutes ago and already, Grigory Toporov is ready to leave Vovan Kapustin’s stinking, muddy excuse for a farm. Much of this has to do with Vovan himself, who never seems to stop talking but never manages to find anything to say.

Excepting, of course, the phone call he’d made to Grigory yesterday. The phone call which pulled him out of the city, driving all night to reach this—his foot squelches into an icy cow pie—shithole.

 _A necessary shithole._ Vovan’s farm provides a perfect, remote location to store goods before they were transported down routes through Kazakhstan into the Middle East. Truth be told, he hadn’t minded the drive up until a year ago, when the old Kapustin died and his son, rattle-mouthed Vovan took over the family farm and the family business, which is merely a small part of _Grigory’s_ family business. Normally, Vovan’s rambled phone calls were ignored. He’s an idiot, but he knows his role and fulfills it well-enough. But this call. This call included words like _Interpol agents_ , _white saker falcon_ , _live snow leopard._ Idiot or not, Vovan had been busy and this situation needed oversight.

So here he is, dodging cow pies as Vovan chatters on, wrestling with the half-rusted padlock on the root cellar door. Finally, he gets it open, standing like a fool in the doorway. Grigory keeps to the side, waiting to see if anyone down there is desperate enough to rush out, half blind and wholly stupid.

No one does. But—

The blond woman Vovan mentioned waits, standing, on the bottom step of the stairs. She squints into the sunlight and flashlight he shines down at her, illuminating her filthy face, her arm bound up in a splint and sling. Despite the angle, the dirt, the narrowed, watering eyes, there’s something arrogant in the lines of those sharp shoulders, as if it is them at the top of the stairs who are beneath her.

“Her hands were tied!” Vovan protests in his own defense. “I did it myself!”

The woman makes no indication that she understands them. She starts to climb upward.

Grigory steps into her path on the stairs. “Where do you think you’re going, girl?” he asks her in English. She stops, still out of reach. Disappointing. If she’d continued, he’d have kicked her back down. Taken some of the steel out of those shoulders.

Ah well. Time for that soon enough.

“Where’s the other one?” he asks Vovan in Russian. The farmer thinks his English is much better than it ever proves to be.

“In the hole as well! I tied them both!”

 _As if the fox will not gnaw its own leg to get out of the trap._ _The question is, will the fox protect its mate?_

As he descends the steps, swollen wood groaning, she gives ground before him, feet light and sure even moving backward, on the slippery surface. Did she linger a moment, before stepping aside to reveal her partner? He isn’t sure. Vovan insisted they are not fucking. That they hate each other. But Grigory’s seen the performance before. Almost impossible to maintain for long, when the appropriate pressure is applied.

Behind him, Vovan is relating how he and his workers beat the man, who’d tried to fight them with his hands tied behind his back. They’d shot him with the tranquilizer darts intended to keep that fucking leopard calm for transport and kicked him down the stairs. It doesn’t sound as heroic as Vovan thinks it does. He’s almost glad the girl didn’t get in range for him to do the same. He can’t have Vovan thinking they use the same techniques.

The man is lying on his back, eyes closed, breath a labored whine. His hands—still tied—beneath him. _That’s interesting._ Grigory sweeps his flashlight to shine back on the girl, waiting to the side quietly, almost bored. She blinks reflexively at the brightness.

“You did not help him?” he asks her.

She doesn’t shrug, but somehow he sees the intention anyway, the dismissal of the man lying in the muck. “He’s an asshole. And an idiot. I can deal with the first.”

 _These are Interpol agents?_ “What is your name?”

“What’s yours?” she parries, as if she actually has a chance in this fight. He kicks the still form of the man, keeping his eyes and flashlight locked firmly on her face. A choking gasp from the man, still not conscious enough to bother with, if he even survives Vovan’s stupidity.

Nothing from the girl. Not defiance, not fear, nothing. She simply waits. If it is a performance, it’s a good one. Possibly the best he’s seen. Ah well. What was the English saying? Two birds, one stone? If not, one bird and one stone will suffice.

“Grigory Aleksándrovich Toporov.” It costs him nothing to tell her. If she’s as smart as he thinks she is, she’ll understand why.

“Oh?” She tilts her head, scrunching her nose up as if disappointed.

The thick shaft of the flashlight sits steady and firm in his hand as he reverses his grip and pistol whips her with the butt, sending her reeling against the side of the stairs, then to her knees clutching at her arm. Blood streams from her temple.

“I asked for your name,” he reminds her.

She raises her eyes. Slightly unfocused but one blow isn’t enough to knock sense out of or fear into them. “What’s the magic word?”

They are interrupted by a broken cough and a wet splat behind him. And now Vovan’s on his ass in the mud, shouting about how he’s going to kill the fucker for tripping him. His own damn fault for kicking the man back to consciousness.

“I want him alive,” Grigory snaps, though he likely doesn’t and even more likely isn’t going to get much choice in the matter. The captive man sounds like a cat choking to death on a live fish. But giving Vovan that much free rein sets a dangerous precedent for the future. “Be useful, get him talking.”

It’s a good assignment for Vovan, keeping him busy but likely to fail. And Grigory can return to the girl—much more promising.

She’s back on her feet when he turns and advances towards her. He prefers not to tie her, if he doesn’t have to, it’s more satisfying when they realize running won’t help. And this slip of a thing doesn’t run now, though she steps back involuntarily. Good. Progress.

“Here are the things you will tell me,” he says. He doesn’t make them questions. “Your name. Your partner’s name. Your Interpol identification numbers and home office. The extent of this current smuggling crackdown and cooperating local law enforcement.” He smiles. Does not hit her. Not yet. Behind him Vovan shouts for a bucket of water and his cattle prod. Idiot.

Her eyes dart over his shoulder at Vovan’s voice, but she yanks them back. “What’s in it for me?”

 _Now_ he hits her, using the flashlight to smack the fingers of her good hand, which still shelters her bad arm. With the beam bouncing across the walls he can’t see her reaction, but he hears the hiss and whimper before it’s drowned in Vovan dousing her partner in half-frozen water from the cow trough. _So_ distracting.

“Take your toy somewhere else, Vovan. Remember I want him talking. Talking requires air.” They wait as Vovan yells for his farmhands to help him drag the wretch up the steps and away.

“Now. Where were we?” He says, switching back to English.

“What makes you think I’m Interpol?” She’s moved back again, just a step or two.

Grigory reacts immediately, arm barred across her throat, shoving her back against the support post in the middle of the space. “I will make you regret every question you ask.”

She bites him, hard, on his forearm. How she manages it, moves that fast, he’s unclear, and doesn’t particularly care. For the next few minutes he ensures she will not do it again.

When she’s properly cowed, curled in fetal position at his feet, snot and blood streaming from her freshly broken nose, he smiles. Lifts her head with his boot almost gently. “Let’s start again.”

Hardison. Flight 3482 to Gorno-Altaysk. Yesterday.

The plane technically had WiFi, but only technically. Hardison was half tempted to try to crawl into the wiring and see if he couldn’t improve the situation. He had work to do. His little hacker collective of trafficking trackers was already flying high by the time their wheels left the ground, but he needed to check in, review any data they’ve collected for signs of Parker and Eliot, not that he knew what that would look like. He just...knew he needed to look. And the tab he just opened was still loading...and loading...and loading...

The last time Hardison had flown out of Dubai, he’d been full of heady wonder at Parker’s closeness, her fingers woven into his, arms brushing, her head occasionally pausing to rest on his shoulder while they waited for their flight. She couldn’t stop talking about her leap off the tallest building in the world and he’d been happy to let her, as terrifying as _that_ sounded. He’d packed her the parachute, hadn’t he?

But he also couldn’t stop watching Eliot. Eliot, who paced the overly ornate terminal like a caged animal. Who snapped even more than usual whenever anyone spoke, turning and running his hands through his hair. _He’s angry at Sterling_ , Sophie murmured, off comms now that the job was done.

And yeah, Eliot had every right to be pissed at Sterling. Dude had _drugged_ him. That shit wasn’t cool, and he knew it _really_ wasn’t cool with Eliot. Hardison intended to send some nasty pranks Sterling’s way as revenge. But he kept thinking about Eliot’s hug and immediate shove away, the accusation that _Hardison_ was the one initiating contact. Look, he could roll with that. Not acknowledge Eliot’s brief lack of inhibition. Wouldn’t be playing fair to use it, anyway.

It was just… Eliot didn’t seem okay. Like a fraying rope about to snap not-okay. Like Parker, earlier in the job before they’d worked out what was bothering her and practiced her steps together. _I got you_ , he told her and meant it wholeheartedly. Whether that meant clinging to him in a hotel room or giving her the means to fling herself off the side of a sky scraper. What if Eliot wanted that first option as well?

And okay, so he wasn’t a Time Lord or anything, double hearts beating away, but who said he couldn’t say the same thing to Eliot? Mean it the same way?

Parker leaned her head against his shoulder again, following his gaze to where Eliot had finally settled into a seat, only to get up again a moment later.

“On the plane,” he said, voice low. Do you mind if I sit with El?”

“He’s going to yell at you.” She was so close. So warm and so close. They could spend the whole damn flight nestled together if only—

“If that’s what he needs to do. I jus’ think he needs someone he can trust. You’n me spent the job dancin’—”

“And he spent the job with Sterling. Ugh. Okay. We’ll sit with him.”

“We? Babe, there ain’t a middle seat in first class?”

Regardless, the moment they hit cruising altitude, Parker’d clambered over them both, settling sideways with her legs stretched across their laps like a twitchy blanket. “Better,” she announced and promptly went to sleep.

Eliot, who’d spent the flight up till now snapping at Hardison over every little thing he could think of, sighed. “You ain’t tryin’ to hug me again, right?”

 _That’s exactly what I am doing, you complete goober._ “Nah, I just figured you’d want to help arrange a nasty surprise for Sterling.” He pulled out his laptop, and rested it on Parker’s legs. “I’ve got wifi and hours to kill. And don’t tell me you’re gonna move and wake Parker up. Girl’s had a hard day.”

Eliot stared at him for a moment as if he was searching for the catch in Hardison’s offer. Satisfied there wasn’t one, he finally grinned and leaned over until their shoulders touched to watch Hardison’s screen. “Does it involve me punching him?”

“See I was thinkin’ of mailing him a—you know what, we could mail him your fist in a box! Robo-punchin’ Eliot-in-a-box!”

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” Eliot informed him. “Hang on. How much force could you…”

He was startled out of his reverie by Maggie settling down in the empty seat next to him, which is definitely not in the plan. She wore a bright headscarf covering her hair—Sophie too—to help disguise her from notice in case Pieterse, seated at the front of the plane, happened to scan faces on a trip to the bathroom. For similar reasons, she and Sophie were sitting together, as were Nate and Sterling. So far, Hardison hadn’t heard any indications that those two had begun punching each other, but it was a long flight. They had plenty of time to attempt simultaneous strangulation.

“You shouldn’t be—”

“I wanted to say thank you,” Maggie murmured, laying her hand on his arm. “I know it’s not worth much, right now, but thank you. For coming.”

“Eliot wanted to save some stupid falcon.” It was hard, talking around the egg-sized lump in his throat. “And Parker—she likes you.”

“She got us out. Her bag of tricks. Now it’s our turn.” There was more steel in her voice than he expected. “Try to get some sleep, Hardison. It’s a long flight.”

“I have work to do.” His page finally loaded and he turned his attention to it, tuning Maggie out entirely. “I’ll sleep when I get them back.”


	5. Chapter 5

Eliot. Vovan’s Barn. Present.

It’s possible he’s bitten through his tongue.

Eliot approaches the problem clinically. There’s pain, sure, and blood, but none of his own flesh seems to be rolling around in his mouth, so overall the prognosis is positive.

_Right. Focus on the positives, Spencer. Not like there’s enough of them to divide your attention._

If that asshole Vovan hadn’t been so ham-handed he could’ve stuck around, kept a closer eye on Parker and that psychopath she’s working on. Instead, he’s been dragged, sopping wet and shivering, to be strung up in an unused horse stall, lead lines pulling him spread-eagled between the posts. Vovan—nice to have a name to cuss out—keeps triggering that damn cattle prod in the air. Amateur. He’s only applied it to Eliot once, right after he’d been secured.

 _Fun fact_ , as Hardison at his most annoying would say _, wet skin has a much lower resistance for electrical shock._

Eliot had known this, though in the tiny corner of his brain that he’s reserved for truly ludicrous thoughts—the kind that keep a guy sane—he’s imagining running some tests with Hardison using gummy frogs. Might be useful in the future.

Vovan hadn’t known this, or hadn’t applied the knowledge with enough foresight to stand clear, which is the same damn thing in Eliot’s book. He’d demanded answers to a question Eliot doesn’t even remember now, because if it was hard to breathe before, being functionally crucified in a horse stall didn’t improve the situation, and that was before he’d stuck the cattle prod in Eliot’s abdomen.

Eliot hadn’t appreciated the convulsions, or almost biting clean through his tongue, but projectile coughing a mouthful of blood into Vovan’s face as a result was pretty damn hilarious. He wished he’d done it on purpose.

Involuntary or not, it spooked Vovan, who probably thought the guy he was supposed to keep alive for interrogation was coughing up blood. Hell, maybe he is coughing up blood by this point, it all tastes the same and he can’t distinguish one type of pain from another right now, which worries him more than the variety. Buffet. Cornucopia. Smorgasbord. No, scratch that last one, he’s always hated that word. Sounds stupid.

 _Refocus._ Parker. Parker had given him a shopping list. He likes shopping. It’s so...normal. He likes normal. He’d had normal and thrown it away, only to fish it out of the trashcan decades down the line, and even then, he hasn’t dared unfold that crumpled up normal, stained with God knew what, just left it, sitting there in a sunny corner of his mind, shadows accentuating the creases until they drive him nuts and he teases open just a corner here and an edge there. No more. He’s scared, alright? Scared of whatever’s in the middle of that normal. Scared of the larger rips hidden in smaller furrows, and what happens if he smoothes it all out, smoothes it as much as he can and it all disintegrates beneath his fingers? Like the cheap pulp paper of novel read too many times, dropped in the bath, in the dirt, in the bottom of a rucksack before yet another bug-out. Better it stays balled up, minimizing the exposed surface area. Better for everyone.

 _Are you brooding?_ Parker asks. She pokes him in the side and it doesn’t hurt, so she’s probably a hallucination. _You look broody._

 _Like a hen,_ Hardison agrees and slings an arm over his shoulders. _Hey man, fun fact about electrocution and also, oddly enough, partial asphyxiation_ —

_It fucks with your brain._

Eliot returns to something resembling the present, to discover he’s hanging limp, shoulders screaming in protest. Now that they have his attention, everything else begins screaming too, but he ignores it all, even the bloody string of drool dangling from his mouth. Now, he stops trying to breathe, a decision his lungs immediately protest, spots appearing in his vision too soon, much too soon, he won’t be able to hold this for long—but he just. Stops.

<“Did you kill him, boss? That asshole won’t be happy if you killed him.”>

<”Shit. Shit. Shit. Cut him down.”>

Eliot allows himself a crack of a smile, well-hidden beneath his bowed head, dripping hair, the caked blood on his lips. He waits until both wrists are freed, knees thumping into soft hay.

_Come get me when you’re ready._

He strikes.

What he does to Vovan and his three farmhands isn’t all that creative, just brutally effective. Though it does involve the cattle prod. Eliot hangs on to that, figures it might come in handy and Parker will like it. He leaves them—unconscious or dead, he doesn’t give a flying fuck—and moves deeper into the barn.

He can hear noises now—high-pitched cries that first he mistakes for human, until he looks in another abandoned stall. _If there were horses in here, they’d have been panicking this whole time._

The snow leopard lays on its side, panting shallowly. The thick, patterned fur of its flank rises and falls in a rhythm Eliot feels intimately familiar with by now, though something in his own fucked up chest eases, upon realizing that two tranq darts in him are two less in this creature.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he tells the leopard, who flicks the barest tip of its fluffy tail at the sound of his voice. “I’ll get ya outta there.” It’s a promise, but he can’t do anything about it yet. He still needs to find the falcon. And a car.

He keeps moving. Stop for too long and he won’t be able to get started again. A few stalls down, the hay is piled thick and high. Too high—he’s mucked enough stalls to know. He begins to brush it aside carefully, then finds the tarp underneath and pulls it away. Suitcases. Three of them. Cheap black fabric. Nondescript. Bending to unzip the first sends a flare of pain too bright to ignore flashing through his side, so he kneels carefully instead, already sure of what’s inside. 

_Falcons_. Peregrines, sakers, a few gyrs.

They’re hooded, packed tight in rows, the white beauty everyone’s after stuffed in with the rest. _Way to treat a bird worth several million. Or any other creature, you fuckers._ They pant like the leopard, beaks open. No tranq darts needed here, just a sip of vodka to keep them mostly quiet. Eliot sees red, welcomes the bubble of rage building inside him.

“Eliot?”

 _Parker? No, just your own private hallucination. Have to pick her up when_ —but he finds her, _the real her_ , at his shoulder, swaying slightly, her hands, face, jacket all coated in blood. She’s holding a set of car keys in one hand and a sharp, splintered shard of wood in the other. “I came to help with the shopping.” She giggles, a high hiccup of wrongness. “Didn’t know you were buying in bulk!”

“Parker, what happened?” It’s a process, getting to his feet, but he manages it, catches hold of her, pulls her close. He wants to transfer all that blood, have it staining his clothes, his hands. Where it belongs.

“Doesn’t matter,” she mumbles into his arm. “Not all of this is mine.”

“He comin’? After us?”

“ _No_.”

“Okay then.” Eliot tightens his grip around her for just a moment, grounding them both. “Okay. Let’s get goin’.” He nods at the cattle prod he dropped when digging through the hay. “Got ya’ somethin’.”

She almost topples over, stooping to grab it, catching herself on the wall.

“Hey now,” he reaches out a hand to steady her, as if he’s solid on his feet right now. But that’s not the point. “Concussion?”

Parker nods, sways harder. “Mistake.” He’s not sure if she means the nod or getting hit that hard in the first place, but before he can tell her the second ain’t on her, she wrinkles her nose. “Does getting whacked with a flashlight make you smell smoke?”

“Not usu—” he smells it too now, registers the low glow from back where he came. _Must’ve sparked the hay with the cattle prod. Fuck_. “We gotta move. Where’d you come in?”

Parker points: “Side door. Car’s parked nearby. BMW, a nice one.”

“Get the birds loaded. I gotta—”

“Eliot, leave them.”

“I ain’t leavin’ the birds or—”

“No. The men.” She stares at him, eyes hard. “You don’t have to save them.”

There’s no time to explain that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. “Be right back.”

Hay, particularly wet hay, can smolder for a bit before it catches, but once the dry upper layer ignites, it’s over. He knows this, has had barn fires drilled into his brain, seen more than his fair share. Least there’s no horses, the cows are presumably in the pasture, and he doesn’t give a fuck about Vovan or his men. But the leopard. He made a promise to her.

Given the fact that everything that could go wrong on this job has, and he’s currently in a burning barn trying to hoist a half-sedated wild cat on his shoulder while nursing at least a couple of broken ribs, it’s a miracle she’s still so out of it that she lets him keep his face.

The fire’s climbed up into the rafters now, dropping bits of fiery ash that sting his cheeks and hands. The leopard whines as the embers find her. They’re lost now, drowning in the smoke, but somehow he’s still on his feet and so they keep moving, step by step, until a small hand finds him, drags him several steps to the right and out through a side door.

“Trunk,” he manages before his lungs rebel. He can’t see Parker, too far in his peripheral, she’s eaten by the red spots returning to his vision in force, but the trunk opens in front of him. He staggers forward, pitches the leopard in over his head as he drops to his knees, arms reaching upward to pull the lid closed.

There’s a drunken snarl and something pulling at the underside of his forearm. Pain and realization take full seconds to hit and by then there are screams from the not-distant-enough farmhouse and Parker screaming at him to get in the car, so he presses the arm to his abdomen in some futile attempt to stop the bleeding, the coughing, the scraping of his ribs across his lungs. Apparently, the answer to _who needs luck_ is them, and a kiss ain’t gonna do it this time.

“No one’s following us,” Parker says, and he wants to tell her that it’s not safe to drive with a concussion, but that would require talking and options. She’s saying something else, about a broken phone and a stolen wallet full of rubles, and he tries to listen, he does. But it’s too murky down here. In the depths.

Anna. Altai-Sayan Ecoregion. Present. 

They wouldn’t have found the car for days if Roman had gone on the supplies run the day before, like he kept saying he would, right up until the moment he didn’t. _Brilliant ornithologist, complete disaster on all practical matters_ , Anna thinks, but keeps it to herself, even as Tamara and Aleksey grumble and bicker over the random dusty cans they find at the back of the cupboard that had unexpectedly become their dinner. She’s hoarded some candy bars in her own things for this summer stint at the Conservatory, but those were for later.

Roman takes off the next morning, head ducked against Tamara’s dire threats, in the Conservatory’s van with promises to be back with food and other supplies by mid-afternoon and of course _that_ comes and goes without a sign of him. The betting pool of which species/behavior combination has distracted him this time is well underway when he calls, sounding slightly frantic and shouting that Aleksey needs to get out to the road with his med kit immediately.

Aleksey, former army medic, is up and moving the moment she stammers the message to him. “Where?”

Anna relays that information from Roman, blinking in surprise as Aleksey beckons her to come with. “But I don’t know anything about—”

He isn’t listening, or he just doesn’t care that she has no experience in first aid. Tamara’s still out, checking the nesting platforms, so Anna scribbles her a hasty note that probably makes no sense, before dashing after him. Since Roman has the van, it’s a jolting, bumpy ride in one of the ATVs miles out down the road, where they find him carefully examining sedated falcons from three suitcases he’s lined up on the rocky shoulder. Anna opens her mouth to ask where the hell they’d come from.

“Down there,” Roman points, cutting her off. “Two of them.” He makes no move to leave the birds.

She follows Aleksey, who briefly touches Roman’s shoulder, but doesn’t yell at him for putting the birds before the humans still trapped in the car. They scramble down the embankment to where a fancy black BMW waits, its front end crumpled badly against a boulder. The trunk had somehow come open as well, and Anna glances in as she hurries past. Nothing of note, but the interior carpeting is ripped to shreds. Weird, for such a nice car. She shakes her head and joins Aleksey, as he checks the driver first: a blond woman with blood crusting the side of her face. She moans slightly as he searches for a pulse. “Alive at least.” He circles to the passenger side, opens the door, and clicks his tongue sharply. That, Anna’s learned from visiting too many nests with diseased or injured chicks, means things aren’t good. She peers in, past the woman, and sees the other seat is reclined far back, a man lying awkwardly twisted in it, as if he’d been thrown forward, and fallen back unconscious. Which, she realizes, he probably had. His front is covered in sticky blood, and his face is filthy.

“What do you need me to do?” she asks. Her application to study the falcon population of the Altai mountains as part of her post-grad studies hadn’t mentioned this skillset would be required. 

“Neck stabilizer for her and mind that arm in the sling. We’ll need the stretcher for him.”

“Is he...?”

“Currently alive. Get moving.”

Back up at the van and the ATV, Roman is holding something white: a young falcon. “Is that...?” _I need to stop leaving questions hanging._

“Looks like. We’ll scan her the moment we get back, see if it’s our special girl. Looks like you’ve had an adventure, beauty,” Roman murmurs, talking more to the bird than to her. Aleksey yells for the stretcher and she hurries to obey.

The girl is conscious, somewhat, when she gets back to the wreck. At least, her eyes are open and she’s talking, in English, about a leopard and the sky and falling. None of it makes any sense.

“You speak English, right?” Aleksey demands, and Anna nods, then realizes he isn’t looking at her, too busy sprinkling some power on the gory mess of the man’s forearm.

“Yes. What’s that?”

“Coagulant. He’s lost blood. A lot of it.” His fingers keep moving as he explains. “She’s probably concussed. You’re in charge of her.”

“What do I...do?” she asks, remembering this time to finish the question.

“Try to get her to tell you what happened, but don’t expect it to make any sense, she’ll be confused. If she has enough balance to walk, get her to the van, and tell Roman to get his ass back down here, to help me with the stretcher.”

As she carefully guides her out of the car, a wallet falls out of some pocket, and Anna stoops quickly to pick it up, before slowly guiding her charge up the embankment. In the van, as they drive back to the Conservatory, she takes a moment to read the identification card inside. Grigory Aleksándrovich Toporov.

She notes the name and tucks the wallet away, as the woman starts, half-shouting “They’re coming! We have to move! We need to move! Eliot, where are you we need to go!”

It’s the closest she’s come to making sense, and Anna tries to reassure her, promising her they are safe now, even as she looks over her shoulder, checking the road behind them for illusory pursuers. She doesn’t see any, just Aleksey, kneeling among bags of groceries hurriedly shoved aside. He’s been cursing the lack of an oxygen tank as he holds a mask to the man’s face, squeezing a bulbous bag to press air into him. Tamara'd mocked Aleksey before, for his ridiculously overstocked collection of medical supplies, until Roman spoke up and told her to quit it, as Anna watched the lines around Aleksey's mouth tighten. She's never gotten an explanation and she decides, watching him with his patient, that she doesn't need on. The man seems so small, lying on the stretcher, as if Aleksey and his bag are the only things keeping him from deflating entirely.

“Ignore him, keep her calm and talking,” he reminds Anna.

“I think his name is Eliot,” she says. Aleksey nods in approval.

Asking questions of the woman gets her questions in response, so she does her best to answer them simply: _No one is chasing you. You are safe. Your friend is hurt, but Aleksey is helping him. He’ll be alright. You are at the Altai Raptor Conservatory. My name is Anna Kiseleva. You were in a car accident. You have a concussion._ She finds herself going over this information so many times that Roman and Aleksey, neither of them fluent in English, could have given the same replies. Nothing seems to stick. But Aleksey says that’s normal and to just keep her comfortable.

Tamara jogs out the moment they pull up, demanding to know where the ATV is, but she drops that line of questioning as soon as Roman hops out of the driver’s seat, yelling for Tamara to help Aleksey, he has birds to resuscitate. Tamara swears at him and keeps swearing when she rounds the back of the van and sees the stretcher and the man and the blood.

“Smugglers?” she throws up her hands before planting them firmly on her broad hips. “Why help them?!”

“We don’t know if they are!” Anna snaps, carefully guiding her charge out of the van and sliding an arm under her shoulder as support when she staggers. “They’re American. At least, she is.”

“My question stands,” Tamara mutters, but she grabs one end of the stretcher when Aleksey orders her to. She’ll be better help for him than Anna or Roman. Anna’s never seen Tamara squeamish about anything.

Squeamish. She quickly turns the woman around so neither of them can see all that blood. It’s certainly not making _her_ calm, and she doesn’t even know the man.

“Take her to your room. She should sleep,” Aleksey calls as they walk past with the stretcher.

The woman protests up until the moment Anna gets her lying down, and promises, hoping it’s not a lie, that Eliot is here and safe. If that’s even the man in the other room. If he’s still alive. She tells her none of these concerns until she’s fast asleep on Tamara’s bunk, then whispers her worries to the empty air. Tamara will probably be mad about her bunk being used, but she’d insisted on the bottom. Not that Anna’s minded the top, as her own private roost. Now she stares down at the sleeping girl, unsure of what to do with herself.

The phone rings. No way Tamara and Aleksey are going to answer it, and Roman… Right, she’ll have to check back in on her later.

It’s an American. A frantic one that speaks almost too fast for her to follow, something about the white falcon, then demanding to know if they’ve seen two people: a blond woman and a stocky man with brown hair. Anna glances toward the workroom, where they’ve cleared the roosts and other equipment off the large table to lay the stretcher down.

“Tell me, please, are they there??!” The man yells on the other end.

_They’re coming. We have to move. We need to move! Eliot, where are you we need to go._

“I don’t speak English,” she lies in Russian, to buy herself some time to think. Is this who she’d been afraid of?

“DAMMIT—” there’s some scuffling for the receiver and then a new voice, throaty and annoyed takes over in serviceable Russian.

“My name is James Sterling,” he begins, voice clipped, words simple. “I work for Interpol. We are looking for two of our agents. Can you tell me if you’ve seen them?”

“How do I know you’re actually Interpol?” Anna asks carefully. He tells her his badge number and she dutifully writes it down along with his name. In the background she can hear other voices, both men and women all sounding worried and demanding he describe them, tell her their names, they don’t care about anything but getting them back. They sound like Anna’s parents, the night her brother Piotr went missing and stayed missing until late the next day, because he’d gone to an internet cafe and fallen asleep playing some stupid game. They sounded like a frightened family.

“Yes,” she says, in English now, because it seems right to admit now that she’s telling the truth. “They are here. Hurt, but our medic is helping. How did you know?”

“A little bird told me!” the American shouts in the background. “Sterling, tell them we’re coming immediately.”

“I can hear him,” Anna told Sterling, who sighs.

“Everyone can hear him, the idiot.”

Behind his voice she heard a woman’s: “Tell her thank you, James. For trusting us.”

“What’s your name, girl?” he says instead.

“Anna. I’m a grad student.”

“Well, Anna the grad student, brace yourself.” He hangs up without explaining what that means, so she leaves it out of the message, when she tells the others that people are coming.

She then places another call, this time to Piotr. “Are you busy?”

“Hey sis! I’m on a rampage!”

“Video games?”

“No, actually, you’ll like this: this super-cool hacker sent out a call and some instructions for tracking down and disrupting the communications of animal traffickers. It’s awesome. Don’t tell mom I haven’t slept in like a day and half, okay? She hates that.”

“I do like that and I won’t tell mom, but I need a favor. Can you hack into Interpol?”

“Can I _what._ ”

“I mean it! I need to know if a man is who he says he is.”

“What’s his name?”

She tells him and listens to brief, rapid typing. “Google says yes.”

“ _Google?_ ”

“Yeah, he’s got tons of news stories about him, seems to like the spotlight, this guy.”

“Oh. But he’s Interpol? And, she thinks back to his voice, “British?”

“Yes to both. Anyone else I can google for you? You have a computer there. I should know, having installed it.”

 _And the live webcam that’s caused so many problems and you thought would be such a great way to raise awareness and donations._ “Grigory Aleksándrovich Toporov.”

“Sis...I don’t need to search him. He’s mafia. Important too—or at least related to important people. What are you…”

She’s not listening, having pulled out the wallet again with shaking hands. It’s covered in dried blood. _Whose?_

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells Piotr. “Just a name I heard.” She hangs up and goes back to the sleeping woman in Tamara’s bed. “Who are you? Where did you come from?” she asks her again, but she gets no answer.

Maggie. Gorno-Altaysk Airport. Present.

“That,” Maggie tells Hardison as James hangs up the phone, “was brilliant.” James huffs behind her, as if he should be the one getting the compliment, but she recognizes the wavering of fear and hope in Alec Hardison’s eyes. God, does she ever.

Even stretched as thin as he is currently, impatient to dash off on his new lead, he gives her a ghost of his usual bright grin. “Had already logged the PIT tag when Parker an’ El broke into the Conservatory on their way out into the steppes to give me access. Helluva long shot, it getting scanned again by the same people, and even then, it didn't necessarily mean they were with the bird. But...” 

Sophie wraps an arm around him. “But you know them best of any of us. We should get moving.”

Nate’s glance jumps between all of them and Maggie knows his thoughts are following at the same speed. “Not all of us, we can’t lose Pieterse.”

 _We could_ , Maggie thinks. _He got us here, but now we know where they are, so he’s no longer important._ James is nodding in agreement with Nate, because of course he is, she should know better by now.

“Nate…” Sophie begins, with that edge of warning that he should be careful about what he says next.

“People, I do not care who is coming, I am getting on the goddamn road!”

But Hardison does care, and Maggie can see it, can see the hurt of Nate putting the job over him, over them. She recognizes that too. _When will he learn?_ He never had, not with her and Sam, as much as it had pained her to admit at the time. As much as she’d struggled to finally walk away. For herself.

“Hardison...if this is all, for _nothing_...” Nate tries to explain, and Maggie feels the heat rise in her cheeks that getting them out was _nothing_ , but—she understands. Hardison does too, but he’s got too much on his mind to care right now, as he turns and walks away. Understanding isn’t the same as acceptance. Sophie gives Nate another _Look_ , of a type Maggie knows all too well, and hurries after Hardison.

 _Eliot wanted to save the falcon._ Nate needs to be able to give him and Parker that. A success. He’s always needed that tangible proof that he didn’t fail.

She does too, she realizes. It’s not enough that everyone’s safe. Not when they are this _close_. “Nate. We’ve got Pieterse. James and I. Go.”

His eyes leap back to search hers. “Maggie, I—”

She shakes her head. “They need you.” She doesn’t say: _They’ve been your family for the last six years._ Or: _Don’t you fucking dare screw this up again_. Or: _We both found something important even if we struggle to trust it. That’s okay, but it’s not an excuse._ Or: _I miss him too._ They’re all true, and Nate, when he’s not being a complete idiot, is well-versed in what isn’t said. Instead she just tells him, “We’ve got this.”

“Okay,” he says, trusting her, finally. He gives James a look that should have held a warning, but feels more like an understanding reached. Then he turns and goes after his family.

“We do...have this, right?” Maggie can’t help but ask James.

He grins back. “You certainly sold Nate on that.”

“He’s my ex-husband. If I can’t get one past him, then what’s the point? But Pieterse knows our faces, knows you’re Interpol and I’m an art dealer. How exactly are we going to catch him in the act?”

In answer, James holds up his phone, showing a screen of outgoing, never answered calls. “They cloned his phone. He’s been calling his Russian contact since he got off the plane. No one’s picking up.”

“Why—?”

God, that smile of his is annoyingly cocky. She should hate it. She doesn’t. “If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say Spencer and Parker got lucky. Or unlucky, as the case may be. Though between them and the Russian Mafia, my money’s on them.”

“Nate guessed the same thing, didn’t he.”

“Oh yes.”

“What’s the plan?”

He begins dialing a number. “We’re going to play by the rules, just for you.” Maggie’s certain it’s more for his bosses, but she can accept the facade. “I’m off to recruit the local authorities. I need you to stay out of Pieterse’s way, and—” he holds up a hand at her planned protest, “convince a Russian grad student to loan us a bird worth over a million dollars.”

“That’s...actually _exactly_ my skillset.”

“I know.” _Knowitall._ “I’ll introduce you.”

Anna sounds slightly bemused as Maggie claims the phone from James and says confidently, “Hello, Anna? My name is Maggie.”

“You are Interpol?” Anna asks, her words careful.

“Mmm, I’m a colleague of Mr. Sterling,” Maggie answers, making it not quite a lie. _Colleague_ covers all manner of sins. “Our people—how are they?”

The care becomes hesitation. “The woman—I do not know name?”

“Parker. Her name is Parker. The man—”

“Is Eliot, yes? She say his name.”

“She’s awake then?”

“Not now. Concussion. Aleksey—he is medic—say to let her sleep. Eliot is...I do not know. Not good.”

“He’s tough.” Maggie tells Anna, and herself. “He’ll make it. His...family is coming to you. Their family.”

“I thought so. Did not sound like colleagues.”

The last time she’d seen Parker, months back, when the thief had climbed in through her bathroom window for a friendly chat—no, really. It’d been nice—she’d asked after Hardison and Eliot of course.

“Oh,” Parker said, her smile like a cat in cream, “Eliot’s fucking us now. Sometimes. Not as much as he wants to, I think.”

“Oh!” Maggie’d choked on her wine and quickly changed the subject before her curiosity got the better of her.

It occurs to her now that Hardison and Eliot’s reunion may not align with Russian sensibilities, but that, she decides, is the Russians’ problem, if it’s going to be one.

“They’ve worked closely for years,” she tells Anna now, in complete honesty. “Thank you for caring for them. And for trusting us.”

“We find many birds with them. But I do not think they are smugglers. Ramon says that suitcases were open. Birds suffocate in suitcases many times. It is dark and hard to breathe. But easy to hide and carry. They leave open. Make hard on them, but better for birds. I think they bring to us on purpose. Aleksey say they hurt before crash. But still they bring birds.”

 _If this is all for nothing…_ “Anna, I have a favor to ask, for Eliot and Parker. For the birds.”

“Yes?”

“You have a very valuable falco—”

“We do not have.”

“You do. You scanned the PIT tag.”

“Only keep until fully awake from sedation, then we release. She is wild saker.”

“Is she going to stay that way?”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. _Of course she isn’t. She’s the most valuable, visible creature in these parts. She’s going to migrate south, as her kind do, and along her route every poacher who knows what they’re looking at is going to try their luck._ She doesn’t tell Anna any of this, any more than she’d spoken harsh truths to Nate. Better for that realization to come from within.

“We—Interpol, working with local authorities—are trying to catch a falcon dealer. He came to Altai to buy that falcon off of a member of the Russian mafia.”

“Ah!” Anna slips into Russian for a moment in her excitement, then returns to English. “I understand. Yes. This will not happen, because of your Parker and Eliot?”

“I’m not entirely clear how, but no, it seems it will not. This gives us an opportunity for a sting operation. Do you know that term?”

“I watch American films, yes I know ‘sting’,” Anna sounds mildly amused. Maggie reminds herself that even with the heavy accent, she’s been keeping up with Maggie’s conversation this entire time.

“Right, we want to do a sting. But for that…”

“No.”

“We need the bird.”

“You cannot have bird. I cannot give bird. She is not mine!”

 _Fair point_. “Whose is she?”

There’s a very long hesitation. “Altai-Sayan ecoregion is collaboration of governments. If we do not say where she was born, they cannot fight over her.”

“He wants to buy this bird for half a million dollars and sell it for much, much more, Anna.”

“And now he can’t because Toporov does not have bird.”

 _Toporov?_ She’s always had a good memory for things she can see, so she pictures the name, spelled out, and memorizes how it appears. “And we can’t arrest him. And he’ll be able to do it again. He is trusted as a falcon trainer in Dubai. Unless we can catch him and prove he’s smuggling birds.”

She has the advantage now, because Anna cares about these creatures, has tied her opinion of Eliot and Parker to their care of them as well. But she’s not there yet and Maggie knows it. _She’s a grad student and thinks this is beyond her._

“The Conservatory will get the money,” she says.

“What money?”

“Five hundred thousand. From the sale.”

“OF OUR BIRD?!”

“I thought she wasn’t yours.” Maggie fires back, then softens. “It’s a trap. He transfers the money, and then gets arrested. The bird stays here. If you have someone who looks like they might belong to the mafia, they could escort the bird, be its handler.”

“You promise a lot of money for Interpol agent.”

“I’m a _colleague_ of an Interpol agent,” she reminds Anna, half-expecting her to scoff that she and James also did not sound like colleagues. “I’m operating as an intermediary.”

“To give us five hundred thousand American dollars.”

“For the loan of a falcon, yes.”

“Wait here. I will discuss with _my_ colleagues.”

Maggie waits. She’s always been quite good at it.


	6. Chapter 6

Hardison. Raptor Conservatory. Present.

He can hear shouting and he runs.

Is it a great idea to barge into an unfamiliar building in an unfamiliar country when people are screaming? _Who the fuck cares._

Somewhere behind him, Nate, then Sophie call for him to wait, and he understands that, he does, but he’s through the front door, following shouts of alarm, and there, in front of him, is Eliot.

He’s standing, his back to Hardison, blocking the doorway so the people beyond can’t get past him and the scalpel clenched in one hand. Blood drips lazily from his wrist and for a moment, the sight stops Alec’s heart in fear. It’s clear Eliot’s going to drop any moment from the way he’s shaking, sweat pouring off him, his whole body swaying dangerously.

“Hey Eliot, man, it’s me, come on now,” Alec says, keeping his voice low and calm. Behind him he can hear Sophie and Nate entering the front room and he thinks he sees a flash of blond hair out of the corner of his eye, but he can’t look now, even for Parker.

It’s probably not his voice that does it, but the mixed stares of the people Eliot’s facing down, moving their eyes away from the threat of the scalpel, looking past him at Alec. He waves, because, well, _watcha gonna do?_

Eliot jerks around toward the movement of his raised hand and makes a strangled, choked grunt that he _never_ wants to hear again, going whiter than Alec’s ever seen him, the scalpel falling to the cement floor with a ringing clatter as he collapses in a dead faint.

The movies always make it look effortless and romantic, catching someone before they crack their brains open, but in Alec’s case it’s more of a desperate dive, banging his knee on the floor as he manages to catch him under his armpits, wrapping his arms around Eliot’s chest.

“Nate, a little help here?!”

Nate hurries forward, claims Eliot’s feet. A tall, powerful woman taps Hardison on the shoulder and points into one of the rooms leading off of the main one.

“Thanks,” he says, realizes he should say it in Russian, and gives up the thought, all in the time it takes him to rotate and back through the door. There, he finds a bunk bed, which isn’t ideal—he cracks his head on the top bunk as he ducks and ends up on the bottom bunk, with Eliot on top of him.

“I can shift him, so you can get out,” Nate says, matter of fact, though his hands shake just a bit.

Once the words are said, Alec realizes that’s the last thing in the world he wants to do. “I’m stayin’ here.” He adjusts, pulling him and Eliot up a bit so he can lean against the wall behind them, and El can lean against Alec. “I don’t want him hurting himself, if he wakes up confused again.” _Parker._ “But—Parker—”

“Sophie’s with Parker. She came out of the room behind you.” Nate’s picking at the fingers of his left hand, eyes trapped on Eliot. He seems unsettled; a weird look on Nate, but Hardison can’t find the mental space to reassure him right now. That’s Nate’s job, to always have a plan and order them around? “I’ll go check on her,” he says finally.

Behind him waits a woman in her mid-twenties, mouse-brown hair slowly escaping the ponytail she’s contained it in. She smiles at him, identifies herself as Anna, the woman who’d lied to him on the phone hours before, but told Sterling the truth.

Anna calls something in Russian and a man enters, mouth set in a deep scowl. He’s holding a tray laden with a full, transparent IV bag and some other medical supplies. His eyebrows shoot up when he sees Hardison, his arms still protectively wrapped around Eliot. The muscles at the corners of his mouth quiver and ease slightly.

“He wake up when Aleksey try to switch bag,” the woman explains. “Very angry and confused. Like hurt raptor. He rip out—” she mimes Eliot yanking his IV needle out of his wrist. _Ah, that’s why the blood._ Though now that Hardison’s at a better angle, he can see Eliot’s left arm is swaddled in bandages. It lies limp across his chest, rising and falling slightly with each halting breath. “He lose blood from other arm, and now from wrist. Need fluids.”

Aleksey mutters something at her and is met with a calm nod. “He has supplies to sedate him. Ease his pain. Otherwise he wake up soon.”

“No.” Oh goody, now they’re both staring at him, like he’s some kind of sadistic asshole. “Yeah, I know, and if it were me, I’d be tellin’ you to bring on _all_ the drugs. But he gets really antsy about stuff like that, if ya didn’t notice. Antibiotics and fluids, I ain’t arguin’ with and I’ll make sure he doesn’t either when he wakes up. But he’s gotta consent to the rest, an’ he can’t do that right now.”

Anna doesn’t translate whatever Aleksey says next, but Hardison can take a guess. But he shrugs, kneels down in front of their bunk, and carefully finds the vein on Eliot’s wrist again, inserts the needle, and hangs the bag from the top bunk. He points to different areas on Eliot, namely his ribs (broken) and his left arm (“ripped open” according to Anna’s translation).

Anna waited a moment more after Aleksey had gone. “Your name?”

“God, I’m sorry, of course Sterling doesn’t think about obvious shit like names. I’m Hardison. Alec Hardison. This is Eliot.”

“I know. I talk with woman named Maggie? She tell me Parker and Eliot.”

“Right, kay, and then there’s Nate and Sophie. I think they’re sitting with—how is she? Parker, I mean.” He can hear his voice break a little, but it feels distant, buried under the dead weight of Eliot. _And if she fell behind me, and I missed catching her?_ It’s a pointless, stupid thought. He shoves it back to join the others that want to crowd into his overly stuffed head.

“Concussion. Aleksey says she will be dazed, have headache and trouble with memory. She has been mostly sleeping, except when Aleksey tell me to wake her.”

“Right, yeah, I know the drill.” He’s been watching Eliot’s back, as much as the hitter lets him, for six years now. Obsessively monitoring him for signs of CTE ever since he’d been brained by that carnival ride, though Hardison’d had to factor out irritability as a symptom for obvious reasons. “Any reason she can’t sleep in here? I can watch ‘em both.”

“I did not want to worry her.” She bites at her lower lip, drawing it through her teeth. “When he wakes...tell him we will help. Tamara says she will go. With the bird. It is arranged.”

“Riiight.” He hasn’t the faintest clue what she’s talking about. _I should_ —

Eliot shifts, groans, his breath hitching, then settles again. When Alec raises his head back to Anna, she’s left the room.

It’s oddly still now, though he can hear voices elsewhere in the building, and the soft chirrups of falcons. He’s been plummeting in a haze of desperation, intent on only one thing, and now he’s caught it, or at least half of it. Him.

Eliot shivers, his skin clammy and over-warm. Or maybe that’s just Alec worrying too much again. The man always runs warm. Parker likes to stick her ice-cold hands up against his skin, clever fingers burrowing through his layers until he growls, or on a few occasions Alec has no intention of letting him live down: _yelps._

“Parker’s in the next room,” he tells Eliot. Then he tells him about Dubai and breaking up smuggling rings using their sale posts on facebook and other social media platforms. He tells him Maggie used Parker’s go bag to break out of a sheikh’s compound, and okay, maybe Sterling helped a little, but probably he just took credit for it afterwards, the asshole. He tells Eliot they’re going to have to find things to do that don’t involve moving or movie nights until he and Parker heal, and neither of them is allowed to scare him like this for another year at least.

He tells him he loves him, and that it’s okay if he says “shuddup” back, but it would be even cooler if he said “I know.”

Alec sits quietly then, waiting, but Eliot says nothing at all.

Eliot. Raptor Conservatory. Present.

_C’mon, you jus’ gonna take that? Be a man! Git up an hit ‘im back. I said GIT UP, BOY._

_Damn son! He sent ya’ flyin! Shake it off, Spencer, can’t have my best player sidelined by a love tap like that!_

_YOUR LEFT, YOUR LEFT, YOUR LEFFFT, RIIIIGHT, LEFFTTT_   
_SOMEBODY AIN’T GOIN’ MAKE IT_   
_‘CAUSE THEIR PUNIE LITTLE HEART CAN’T TAKE IT_

_I have no use for weakness: illness, injury, or morality. I pay you for strength. Until you are dead, you are mine to do with as I please._

_WHY WON'T YOU STAY DOWN?!?!_

_Eliot. It’s okay. Lie still._

No. It isn’t. _I need to_ — hands hold him back. _I promised_ — Pain blooms bright as he pulls against them. _It ain’t important. I have promises to keep._

“...an' miles to g—” the cough bulldozers its way up his throat, tearing new ground. It’s different, he notes, in the corner of his brain reserved for clinical categorizations. No constriction of his airway now, but he can taste smoke. _Out of the frying pan, into the_ — His fucking ribs shriek as he tries to pull in air.

“Hey now, easy, easy, I got you.”

Eliot’s oxygen-starved brain reviews the data and determines that the likelihood of Hardison being here behind him is essentially nil. Hardison’s in Dubai, almost 20 hours by plane. Hallucination Hardison— _Hallu-dison_ —presses a pillow against Eliot’s screaming ribs, smothering their chaotic stabs at escaping his ribcage. He can feel himself rattle and shake in the aftermath, head clanging like a shotgun blast in a bell-tower.

Something else rattles. It’s distinctive, but he can’t place it.

“...this gonna hurt, an’ help, you hear?” says the Hallu-dison. It brushes something plastic against Eliot’s mouth.

 _OH FUCK NO._ He thrashes, volume dial on his agony blaring, but he’ll take it over whatever-the-fuck that was.

“Dammit. _El.i.ot._ Work with me here.”

Hallu-dison is good. Sounds just like him. Eliot checks back in with his brain. Inconclusive.

“I got you. Parker’s safe. You’re safe. Quit tryin’ to pick a fight with your own ribcage, an’ let me help. Please?”

Eliot risks a word. “Light.” His voice sounds like an overworked garbage disposal.

“Right, of course. I’m an idiot. Hey, check this out: _Lumos_.”

The too white, too bright glare of a cell phone flashlight stabs at his eyes.

“I didn’t even have to program that. Some other nerd...”

“Hardison?” The third syllable mutates into a cough. Long, brown fingers tighten around the pillow they hold against his ribcage, stilling the spasm.

“Of course, man.” His other hand brushes sweaty strands away from Eliot’s face, tucking them gently behind his ear. “I’m right here. Lean back now, that’s right, on me, I got you.” He keeps up the litany as Eliot hesitates, then folds, exhaustion and relief bearing him down. “Sorry ‘bout earlier, I shouldn’t have gone that fast, that’s my bad.” He holds up something small, shakes it until it rattles. “Asthma inhaler, meet Eliot. I know, I know, he’s been an asshole ‘bout you before, but he’s real sweet and gooey once you get past the nutty bits.”

Eliot thinks about growling in response, but the cost is too high, now that he’s accepted the unlikely existence of Hardison, here, holding him carefully and talking too much. He can’t scare him away.

“El. You still with me?”

“Mmm.”

“Okay, what d’you want first? Water or inhaler?”

“‘M good.” He takes a careful breath. Okay so far. “Check on Park—” godfuckindammit.

The pillow helps with the pain, but not with the shake in Hardison’s voice once Eliot has his stupid chest back under control. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Fuck. Okay. You were bein’ so reasonable for a moment there, I forgot the stubborn idiot lurking underneath.” He shakes the inhaler again, then wedges it between Eliot’s lips. “Breathe in. _Now_.”

It hurts like hell, taking and holding that deep of a breath, but Eliot can feel the relief too, the claws sunk into his lungs loosening their grip.

“Again.” Hardison orders, his voice rumbling along Eliot’s spine, and Eliot obeys. His reward is water, though he isn’t trusted with the cup and maybe that’s fair; he can feel his hands shaking. Hell, the rest of him is shaking by the time he’s done drinking. Head too heavy, he drops it against Hardison’s shoulder, coming to rest in the crook of his neck and jaw.

“If you want them, I have pain meds—”

“No.” He’s firm on that, even if it is at a whisper. “Where’s Parker?” He can do it now, speak her name without wrecking it.

“She’s here, sleepin’ in the next room over. Nate an’ Sophie are with her.”

And Hardison’s stuck here. Under him, instead of where he _should_ be. “You should—”

“Don’t.”

“I’m—”

“No. Don’t say I should be with Parker. Don’t say you’re fine and dandy to get rid of me faster. Don’t say I should just leave you here, when I bet you can’t even tell me where ‘here’ is. Of course I wanna see our girl, Eliot. And I will. We will. But seein’ as you’re the one who passed out in my arms the moment I walked—okay, _ran_ — through the door, we’re gonna be stayin’ right here on this bunk for the time being.”

 _I did what?_ He can’t remember and it sours his stomach, already roiling with antibiotic-induced nausea. “All this fuss…over a couple..of broken ribs.” It’s not the discomfort he minds, but the attention. Pain’s a private thing. Something to be borne in the small of his back, tucked in the corners of a swallow, buried in his core. It’s not for others to see or grasp, interact with as a tangible thing. It’s _his_.

Hardison bends his head to smell Eliot’s hair, brushes a hand over his bandaged arm, conjures a cold damp cloth out of somewhere and oh so gently wipes away the sweat beading on his cheeks and forehead. Eliot shivers at the contrast in temperature.

“Right. A couple of broken ribs.” Hardison says. He tilts Eliot’s chin up. Presses soft lips to his chapped ones. Tastes him delicately, tongue barely passing his teeth before pulling back. Samples him again.

Eliot, already overwarm, flushes hot, shallow breaths coming quicker, Hardison holding him steady and secure against the jagged rhythm. He finds Hardison’s mouth, slices his tongue on Hardison’s teeth, his blood a metallic tang cutting through the sweetness. _Mmmm. Not a bad flavor profile_. It’s a stupid, delirious thought and it’s going to make him laugh, make him cough, scare the man whose mouth he’s currently sharing.

It does.

It hurts like...

….

….

….

He comes back slowly, flinching at the awareness waiting for him.

“I got you,” Hardison is saying, over and over. “Trust me. I got you.”

Something eases in his chest then. Something cracked long ago; broken; shattered repeatedly. It heals, has been healing for some time, but he’s only now noticed the splinters of bone withdrawing from his heart, knitting in a protective arc above it once more.

_I got you. I got you. I got you._

Parker. Raptor Conservatory. Present.

The first time she wakes, her thoughts are scattered jewels and paste, myriad and chaotic. She can’t distinguish them, classify the rubbish and the rubies, add value or cast aside. They cut glass, cut her: diamonds screeching etched lines across her brain. She remembers a fairy tale: a girl with gems falling from her lips, rather than words. The words she lets fall feel heavy, cut like an uncut stone, rough and holding only promises, no light. Not yet.

She is not herself, so scattered, so much brilliance and plastic, fakery and fire that she cannot find her core, only the accent stones, set haphazardly in their mounts.

It’s a relief to sleep again.

There’s a carbide drill at her temple, and the angle’s all wrong, it’s going to hit the glass, crack and lock the safe for good. She bolts upright, her skull a rock tumbler, loose grit cascading every which way, and retches over the side of the bed. There’s nothing in her stomach but bile, the taste acrid and sour as it coats her mouth.

Her hair lifts, is held back, a firm hand rubbing along her spine as she sits up. Discovers a cup of water waiting in front of her lips.

“That’s it, darling,” Sophie says.

Parker finds her eyes, slips past them and finds Nate, wearing the tatters of concern on his pale face. “Parker?” he asks, sounding oddly uncertain.

The drill skids, skips along the glass plate. She cracks, sobbing, as Sophie pulls her in, holds her tight. “You’re safe, sweetheart. You’re both safe.”

It’s shameful, how long she cries, for no good reason. She keeps trying to stop, frustrated that she can’t seem to control this simple thing. Nate, finally gets up from his chair, sits on the edge of the bed with her and Sophie.

“It’s the concussion, Parker,” he says, as if he’s explaining an aspect of a con. “It takes your emotions on a rollercoaster ride they didn’t ask for. That’s all.”

She sniffs. It hurts. The only thing worse than crying in front of people is crying with a black eye and broken nose. Everything feels swollen and soggy with snot and tears, but she likes Nate’s explanations. He and Sophie always explain the things she doesn’t understand, and trust her about the things she does. Plus, Nate knows a lot about brains. He can give people nosebleeds with his. “H-hardison would have a t-terrible pun about mastering my mind right now.”

“Awful,” Sophie agrees. “He’s with Eliot, in the next room, when you feel up to it.”

She should feel up to it right now, but she doesn’t. Not yet. Everything is still too precarious and it’ll scare Eliot if she starts crying again. Just seeing her is going to make Alec scared, and also sad and angry, but he’ll smile anyway, for her.

“I’m missing pieces,” she tells them, then, as one piece lances into place: “Is Eliot okay?”

“Tried to take out a Russian medic with a scalpel, then fainted at the sight of Hardison,” Nate reports. That shouldn’t be reassuring, but somehow it is.

Sophie rolls her eyes in exasperation. “We had a chat with our hosts,” she explains. “Comparing notes and putting the picture together.”

“What happened in Dubai?”

Between them, Nate and Sophie tell her about beginning to suspect Pieterse, the sheikh’s falcon trainer, and cloning his phone. They tell her about Hardison getting worried when she and Eliot didn’t report in. About Maggie and Sterling breaking out using her jailbreak kit, which makes her forget everything that hurts. About Hardison insisting on following Pieterse here in hopes that he would lead them to Parker and Eliot, and of course they were all coming along. About him noticing the PIT tag had been scanned, and guessing that meant they’d come here.

“Parker, did you intend to come here? To the Raptor Conservatory?” Nate asks.

“Yes?” She can’t quite access the memory, but it seems right. “We stole a bird. I wanted to give it back. Where’s Maggie?”

“She and Sterling are setting up a sting to capture Pieterse. Nate talked to her a little while ago. Two of the ornithologists, Anna and Tamara, went to join them. Maggie promised us a button cam feed—”

“I put one in that kit. Just because.”

Nate lifts his eyebrows, letting her know he knew _exactly_ why she’d stuck a button cam in that kit. She grins back.

“Do you want to tell us your side?” Sophie asks carefully.

She tries. It’s hard and she’s tired, by the time she finishes explaining what she can remember. Nate tells her more memories will return to her over time, as her brain reconstructs. She can’t remember most of what happened in the cellar, except for straightening her broken nose, then climbing the stairs. She’d been holding keys... Other parts are still missing. She can’t explain why Eliot’s arm is torn up, or where the birds came from, just that she’d known where they needed to go. She remembers driving, and stopping, pulling the tab that popped the trunk. Why, she doesn’t remember. It’s all jumbled, like someone tossed her warehouse and couldn’t find what they were looking for. If it was one of her warehouses, she’d abandon it, but she can’t abandon her own head, as much as she wants to.

But it’s always better, when her warehouses get too stark and quiet and empty, to go find Alec’s warmth, or Eliot’s steadiness.

She leaves Nate and Sophie, walks carefully out of her room and to the left. It’s darker in here, with only the stark white light a cell phone flashlight, angled up at the ceiling. They’re both asleep, on the bottom bunk; Alec’s head drooping to lean against Eliot, who’s wrapped safe in his arms. She pauses as sharp, bright jewels fall into place.

The cellar. The man standing over her, idly flipping a heavy metal flashlight, sending the beam of light spinning. It’s disorienting. Not the light, or the casual, unpredictable way he would lash out, or the times he caught her, on her temple, her shoulder that still aches, her fingers and elbow underneath. No, it’s way he spins it mindlessly. A toy he’s had for so long it’s become an extension of his arm. It’s how it reminds her of—

Behind him, Talker calls another man, guarding the top of the stairs. Together they haul Eliot out. Plan C, then. They hadn’t had a chance to go over Plan C.

Parker hugs herself, slotting the newly discovered memory into place, then shunting it away. Another clicks into position as she traces the wooden splint on her arm:

After Eliot’s dragged out, she waits until her interrogator is so certain that he has her cornered and alone and _his_ , then she slides the extra spike of wood out of her sleeve. She’d hidden it there for a host of purposes, chosen a piece that was small and sharp and strong, to be a lever, a distraction, a weapon. Whatever she needs it to be.

The light spins, the cellar spins, her entire world won’t stop tilting wildly on its axis, but he leans in close enough, asking her his useless questions, that it’s impossible to miss. She buries the splinter of wood into his eye, drives it back, screams to cover the one shout of surprise he manages to utter before he falls, twitching, dying, dead.

Parker catalogues that memory as well, shoves it back quickly. Another—raiding Toporov’s pockets—scrambles into place, but she doesn’t want any more right now, even though she should get it all organized and coherent, not like it was telling Nate and Sophie. She shivers and tiptoes across the floor to stare down at her sleeping boys. Eliot’s shivering as well, the blanket pinned under him and Alec doing no one any good, and Alec won’t be able to turn his neck tomorrow, if he stays in that position.

This is better. Two solid, simple problems and solutions. The top bunk has a blanket and two pillows, so she steals it all one-handed, carefully tossing the pillows into the corner between them and the wall. The blanket she drags behind her, awkwardly—stupid dizziness—avoiding landing on any extraneous limbs they’ve left laying about.

Alec wakes as she settles, lifting his head so fast she can hear his neck pop. “Parker?”

“Grab the other side,” she orders, before he can short circuit on what her face must look like, given what it _feels_ like.

He does, spreading the blanket so it’s draped over all of them. “Shouldn’t have fallen asleep.” Parker shrugs, their shoulders bumping. She’s been sleeping all day apparently. And Eliot’s like a cat that way. Lie on him and he won’t move—wait. Wrong order. Stupid brain. She shoves their stolen pillows into position instead.

“Thanks,” Alec turns then, eyes widening. “Parker, _oh mama_ —” He starts to lift a hand from it’s location on Eliot’s chest.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. How’s Eliot?”

“Stubborn. Smells like smoke and kept coughing so I made him use my inhaler. Better let him slee—”

“‘M awake.” Eliot’s voice sounds just like the rock tumbler in her skull, but he’s here and breathing and so is she.

“You sure you’re okay, Parker?” Alec rolls his stiff neck as she settles in, careful not to jostle Eliot. There’s many questions buried under that one. She can him shoving them back behind the shake in his voice. Is he asking because he can see the tear tracks on her cheeks? Or her black eye and swollen nose? He doesn’t know about the bruising under her shirt yet. Or is it because he hadn’t come first to her, but caught Eliot as he fell instead? Does he know what she did, down in that cellar? Does Eliot?

“Yes,” she tells them. Some pieces are broken, some still missing, but the big ones are here, warm beside her. She reaches over with her good arm, wrapping it around Alec’s neck and buries her fingers in Eliot’s hair, the way she knows he likes it. Eliot hums and Alec turns, close enough that his nose bumps her cheek before she finds his mouth. He tastes as sweet as she remembers.

“I was so scared for y’all,” Alec whispers when they break apart. “Took me too long to notice you hadn’t checked in an—”

“Don’t,” Eliot rasps, with enough force that Alec stops his recriminations immediately. “Ain’t on you.”

“Or you.” She digs her fingers into Eliot’s scalp. “We had bad luck. Or not. They’d probably have killed us if they didn’t think we were Interpol for some reason.”

“Think some wires got crossed there. Pieterse mentioned Interpol too. Stocky man and a blond woman.”

It takes a moment to click, and then she can’t stop laughing, and Eliot swears until he runs out of breath. “There’s a sting about to go down,” she tells them, both because they’ll want to know and also to get Eliot’s mind off of the indignity of being confused with Sterling. “With the help of our bird friend.”

“Nate an’ Sophie ain’t—” Eliot shifts, as if to get up.

Parker tightens the hold on his hair until he subsides. “No, Sterling, local authorities, and one of the ornithologists to handle the falcon. Maggie promised a button cam feed.” Parker grins as Eliot and Alec both groan. “Nate and Sophie are watching it in the other room.”

“I could probably tap us in,” Alec offers, though he makes no move to locate whatever tech device he has in reach.

Eliot shifts, settles. “Parker’s concussed. Ain’t good. Watchin’ screens.”

He has a point, but she sticks her tongue out at him anyway, for using her as an excuse. Not that he can see it. Alec does, leaning over to kiss the tip. One part of her that doesn’t hurt.

“We’ll just leave ‘em to it then,” he murmurs, as she rests her head against his shoulder again. “I’m good.”

She listens as their breathing slows and evens. Eventually, so does hers.


	7. Chapter 7

Maggie. Gorno-Altaysk. Warehouse. Present.

“Rylond Pieterse, you are under arrest for the purchase and intent to transport a protected species. Bag ‘im, boys.”

Sitting in the (hastily disguised) van owned by the Raptor Conservatory, Maggie smirks with perhaps just a tad too much glee. She covers it with laughter a moment later, as James has to follow up with some hasty Russian translation for his allies from the Gorno-Altaysk police force, masquerading as mafia. Takes a bit of the puff out of his sail.

Beside her, Anna leans over the tablet screen, speaking rapidly in Russian, both to Tamara, and, based on the crooning tone that enters her voice, the falcon. While they’d been waiting in the van, she’d admitted to her and James that she’d begun calling her Sveta, an affectionate diminutive of Svetlana, meaning _the shining one_. “It is stupid,” she’d said. “As scientist, I observe. But you ask me to make choice. For her. And now she is not a number. Now I want to give her name. She does not care. But I do.”

“That’s what happens when you get involved,” Maggie told her. “I think I’m discovering the same thing.”

“Oh? What do you wish to name?”

She hadn’t had an answer for her hours ago and she still doesn’t have one now, as they watch the jolting footage from Maggie’s button cam. Since James would be arriving so late in the game, it had gone to Tamara for the time being, along with a comm unit (also from Maggie’s toiletry bag) to give them audio in the warehouse.

Watching James through the screen... well it’s not just falcons in the process of getting a name.

“Have you thought about my proposition?” she asks Anna, rather than dwell on the heat rising in her cheeks.

“I talked with others. They have interest. And doubt.” She picks at some dirt beneath her fingernails. “They say world does not work this way.”

“I think it can. When people with power or ability are willing to apply it to a problem. I’ve seen it happen.”

“Lucky you.” There’s a bitterness there Maggie decides to let lie.

“No. And yes. I’ve seen the opposite too. I’ve lost—” she stops. Takes a deep breath. “Would you like me to set up a meeting?”

Anna studies her for a long moment, then nods. “Yes. Please.”

“Maggie Collins? I did not expect to hear from you. You left quite abruptly.” Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmed Al Falasi always sounds amused to Maggie. Usually she likes the tone, though it makes it difficult to judge his mood. “Your husband made quite a large hole in my wall.”

“Actually, I made that. My explosives, my hole.” James, sitting in the seat next to her, gives her an alligator grin. She flicks her hand at him silently. “You had us locked in a room for four days, so I consider us even.”

“And the call is to tell me that?”

“I have an opportunity for you. To accompany the information provided.” She’d sent the video of Pieterse’s arrest immediately before the call. “Call me back when you’ve watched it, and we’ll discuss.”

Five minutes. She watches Anna, her thick-gloved wrist providing a perch for Sveta. Tamara is staring at her phone again as if she still can’t believe the amount of money sitting in the Conservatory’s account.

James can’t believe it either. “Plenty of other uses for that amount of cash,” he grumbles, not caring if Anna and possibly Tamara understand him, though the latter gives no indication.

“Other, yes. Better?” Maggie returns. “They’re helping our friends—don’t make that face James—they _are_ our friends.”

“They wouldn’t have done this for me.”

Nate would. And Sophie, Maggie’s certain. Perhaps not the other three, whose relationship with James is rocky enough to sink a ship. But to hear Hardison tell it, they’d had a few other reasons to get involved.

“Well, try to deserve it this time, then.” She softens the words with a smile, but he needs to hear them. Her phone rings.

“I see I need a new falcon trainer. That falcon. Is she for sale?”

“I might be able to help with the trainer,” Maggie tells him, her eyes on Anna. The girl is smart and more capable of holding her own than others seem to expect. And she’ll follow that bird anywhere. “And I can arrange an introduction to the falcon. She is not for sale, exactly. But I’m hoping we can reach an arrangement agreeable to all parties, if you’re interested.”

“Very. Where?”

“Gorno-Altaysk. Tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the airport.” She smiles as she hangs up the phone. “He’ll say yes.” He will. They still need to work out the details, possibly bribe a government official or two into getting on board, but Maggie knows that at the end of the day, she’ll have orchestrated a partnership between the Raptor Conservatory and one of the most powerful figures in the Arabic falconry world, to protect a single bird and hopefully, many others in the future.

Anna frowns. “Sveta is…”

“A symbol,” Maggie interrupts. Her job is to see the value in things. Art, mostly, but sometimes it’s people. Or, in this case, a young falcon, still learning to fly. “She’s a symbol of the cooperation between groups of people who love and cherish this creature, and what they will do to protect it. You know she will not last in the wild. She will be captured, sold, if not die en route, like so many others. This way she has protection. Maybe she’ll breed true, make white sakers less rare.”

“As hybrid, perhaps,” Anna says, considering. “White is regressive in gyrs, but more common.”

“And you’ll have a say,” James reminds her, having picked up on Maggie’s intentions.

Anna blinks. “Me? As trainer? Breeder? To a sheikh?” She turns, speaks rapidly to Tamara, who nods and shrugs as if that part of the plan had already been obvious to her.

“Only if you want to,” Maggie reminds her.

“I think I do.” She sounds more surprised than unsure.

They get a hotel room in town. Three actually: Tamara and Anna taking advantage of a flush account and an opportunity to have some privacy after sharing a bunk bed for two months. Maggie’s rather surprised she doesn’t feel the same.

“Double bed?” she teases as they enter the room.

“They made assumptions.” James seems almost flustered, opening the closet, checking the tiny bathroom, opening and shutting the blinds. “I can take the…” he trails off.

 _All that nosing around and he failed to notice there’s no couch?_ _Definitely flustered._ “I don’t mind.”

He stops, sticking his hands in his pockets so they’re accounted for. “About… what you said. Trying to deserve it.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“No. You did. It’s game theory. Work together or screw the other guy...eventually the asshole wins. I like winning. Liked winning.”

“ _Liked_?” she questions, half-teasing

“Even I can’t ignore that the reason we’re in a shitty hotel room in Russia, instead of locked up in Dubai is because I have a daughter worried enough to call for help, and people concerned enough to come, and most importantly, you somehow, through being the wonder of _you_ —” His hands escape his pockets, gesticulating wildly, “—became such fast friends with _Parker_ of all people, that she gave you—the most honest person I know—a thief’s toolkit.”

She can’t help but smile. “She’s sweet like that.”

“She’s _Parker_.” He drops his hands to his sides. “I’m not…good at that. At reciprocation. In a positive sense, anyway.”

Maggie nods and steps forward, closing the distance between them. She catches up his hands, presses them both to her lips. “No, but I trust you’ll be a quick study, if you put your mind to it.”

His hands escape hers, cup her face, eyes searching. “Promise.”

Eliot. Raptor Conservatory. Present.

He dreams of movement. Of flying, of falling, of sinking, running, stumbling, pitching down a long dark road towards nothing.

Eliot wakes into stillness, the only motion the soft rise and fall of Alec underneath him. It can’t be comfortable. Sure, he’s not the biggest guy, but he’s solid. He feels heavy, and he’s experienced at carrying the weight. At living in his own skin.

Currently, that’s…suffice to say “uncomfortable” is a gross understatement of what his skin feels like. Eliot moves slow, to not disturb Hardison, Parker, or his own tenuous control over his body. It shakes, makes demands he can’t yet meet, screams for inertia.

He ignores it. Uses the slats of the top bunk to pull himself upright. Sits, panting in careful, shallow breaths as the waves of pain wash over him. He doesn’t try to fight it. It is what it is.

The saline bag, fully drained (directly into his bladder by the feel of it), is still attached to his wrist. Out it comes, carefully, thumb pressed to stop the bleeding. The next part, the standing, is the trickiest. Once he’s up, he’ll handle _staying_ up, but— _stop hesitating and get it over with, Spencer._

If Hardison wakes, he’s going to be what Parker likes to call “sadmad” and Eliot prefers to shove away from thinking about whatsoever because it ain’t any of Hardison’s business how Eliot handles his own damn injuries. _Still hesitating._

Fine. He rises, clutching the top bunk for support as his ears roar, the world becoming a spinning gyre— _the center cannot hold_ —it does. Somehow. His heart is about ready to burst out of his chest, but he’s standing. Next.

... _Next_...

...Fuck.

“Alec?”

And he’s there. “Ditchin’ us so soon?” says Hardison’s voice, bent close to his ear. He takes Eliot’s better arm, pulls it across his shoulders, wraps his own arm around Eliot’s chest. “Gotcha.” He doesn’t sound sadmad at all. Not that Eliot cares. Okay. So he does. This is embarrassing. “Bathroom?” So. Fucking. Embarrassing.

“Yeah.”

“Cool, glad you asked for help.” For all Hardison’s mild tone, the words manage to stab deeper than his messed-up ribs. “Hey, El,” he continues as they start, slowly making their way, step by shuffling step. “What went down on your arm?”

“Snow leopard. FUCK.” The leopard. In the trunk. Was it still—

“What?” Hardison stops them both, alarmed. “You _fought_ a leopard??”

“No—” there’s too much colliding in his head right now, questions he should have asked Parker earlier, but been too out of it, too stupid to—

“What’s wrong?” Parker, he’s not sure when she materialised, pokes him in the cheek. It’s fucking annoying. It hurts. It helps.

“Uh, something about a leopard?” Hardison shrugs, so Eliot shrugs with him, which also hurts, everything hurts, but the world’s stabilizing, even as he’s kicking himself.

“Ohhhh,” Parker says. “ _That’s_ why I popped the trunk. That was bugging me.”

“She’s free?” He’s got at least a dozen more questions, but Hardison’s trying to ask most of them all simultaneously and Eliot’s content to let him at it, preferably while they keep moving.

By the time they reach the bathroom, and Eliot, steadier on his feet, shuts the door firmly with them on the other side of it, he’s learned that Parker stopped the car briefly in the mountains, when she heard the leopard screaming, popped the trunk, and drove on after the creature had leapt out and disappeared into the rocks. Free.

Knowing that is almost as much of a relief as finally emptying his overfull bladder. He still needs to get an update on the suitcases of falcons, but first... Eliot turns, carefully, getting back into the rhythm of moving with a fucked-up rib cage. Not like he doesn’t have experience. To the left of the toilet is a simple shower. God, he needs a shower. Even if there’s a bare minimum of hot water, likely, in a place this remote. He’s still covered in mud, blood, sweat, smoke, and ash.

 _And if you slip and fall?_ This is the problem of accepting current limitations. He has to start _thinking_ of practical shit like that.

“Hey, El, you okay?”

Eliot has to hand it to him, Alec waited a long time (for Alec) before asking that through the door.

“Yeah, come in.” And they’re there. At his back. Immediately. “Figure we share whatever hot water there is?” It’s not quite asking for help. It doesn’t matter. Not when Parker carefully strips and steps immediately into the still cold spray, turning her bruised face upward with a smile, before beckoning them to join her as the hot water finds its way through the pipes. Not when Alec ditches his own clothes, takes one look at the remains crusted filth of Eliot’s shirt and just _rips_ it off him. He helps Eliot out of the rest of his clothes, keeping a hand on him. Just in case. It should annoy him.

But _damn_ do Alec’s fingers feel good under the beating water, massaging the dirt out of his scalp.

They all end up wearing the contents of Alec’s suitcase, which Eliot decides looks damn cute on Parker and real fucking stupid on him, even if Hardison packed pretty tame for this trip. He doesn’t bother with a shirt—Hardison only packed t-shirts and Eliot has no intention of lifting his arms above his head any time soon—just shrugs into a hoody and zips it up.

“I’ll make us breakfast.” He’s still dizzy, but the sensation’s hanging back currently, only fuzzing the edges of his vision. “Ought to be some supplies—”

“You’ll sit your ass down is what you’ll do,” Hardison says, adding insult to injury by smacking said ass lightly as they step back out of the room they’d shared, and move down the hall, toward the common space, which hosts a table, and small kitchenette. “Both of you. I’ll figure out food, an’ you’ll suffer through it, as payment for what y’all put me through.”

Parker gives Eliot a look, asking if he’s going to make this a fight. Tempting. Or...not, actually. It should be, but he can feel the twitchiness of Hardison, bracing himself for a showdown. “Fair enough,” Eliot tells him instead. “Jus’ don’t finish the job they started.”

A tall man, built of hard corners, appears at the end of the hall. “You,” he says, looking directly at Eliot.

In a stage whisper, Hardison says, “That’s Aleksey. He patched you up, an’ I’m pretty sure we stole his room last night. Also, he’s got drugs if you want ‘em.”

“I don’t.” Yes, he can feel millions of individually furious nerve endings in his torso right now, but that’s preferable to feeling none of them. “Go figure out food.”

In Aleksey, Eliot recognizes someone who wants to see a job done right. Between them, they’ve got enough broken Russian and English to make themselves understood and Eliot, conscious of the risk they’ve taken in rescuing him and Parker, submits to being checked out again.

The room he leads Eliot to is clearly a workroom more suited towards birds than human patients. In a corner, another man is carefully bent over something minute, a falcon perched on a bar in front of him.

“Roman.” Aleksey points to the man, who lifts a hand, but not his eyes.

He unwraps Eliot’s arm, the bandage still wet from his shower, checks the sutures, nodding in satisfaction.

“I’d appreciate you checking Parker too,” Eliot says, repeating what he can in Russian to get the gist across. “Simple break. Set it myself.” He remembers it settling nicely into place.

Aleksey nods. “After.” He rewraps Eliot’s forearm. “Tape. Ribs.” As he works, tightly binding Eliot’s chest, something loosens the guy’s tongue. “Thank you. For bringing us falcons.”

It sounded so simple, said like that, when Eliot’s sure it’s not something he ought to be thanked for. “Glad you found us. And them. They make it?”

“Was twenty-eight. Lost two. Saved twenty-six. And two people. Math is good.”

Yeah, he can live with that. “Will you release them?”

“When ready. Some have breathing problem. Like you.”

“Accidentally set a barn on fire.” He can still feel the burn of it, but the steam in the shower’d helped some. Hadn’t torn up his insides with a coughing fit yet, today, anyway. _Let’s keep it that way._

“The black man. He was very worried.”

Eliot feels with his chest constrict in a way that has nothing to do with tape or smoke inhalation. It’s getting far too familiar, that sensation. “Yeah, he does that. Worries too much. Thinks too much.”

“You make him worry, yes?”

“All the goddamn time. Kinda the opposite of my job description.” That slips out all in English, probably too fast for Aleksey to keep up. He doesn’t know why he’s admitting this. The last two days have completely (irrevocably?) fucked with his judgment.

“This? Is job?”

 _Started that way._ “It's complicated,” Eliot mutters, more to himself than Aleksey. “I made it just about as complicated as it could be.”

“It did not seem complicated to him,” he answers in simple Russian. “For a man that thinks too much.” He finishes, anchors the end. “Done.”

“Thanks, man.” Eliot turns, carefully, testing his mobility, and finds Alec, standing wide-eyed in the doorway.

“Nate an’ uh, an Sophie are up. Took over breakfast. An’ I said I’d come, see if you need a hand, only if you want, you know, uh…” he trails off.

 _Just about as complicated as it could be._ “I’ll send Parker in,” Eliot tells Aleksey. “Later, I’d like to see the falcons.” Aleksey nods, with just the barest twitch of a smile.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Alec says, when they’re in the hall.

Eliot doesn’t say anything. It feels like he’s only held together by the tape around his ribs, that if he thinks too hard about the expression on Alec’s face back there, if he tries to parse his wide eyes, rambling mouth, twisting hands, he’ll break open upon the rocks he’s created, set between them.

“But...uhm. If I got the Russian parts right...he ain’t wrong. It’s not complicated. Not to me. An’ not to Parker.” He stops, which is good, because Eliot really needs to lean up against the wall right now, and bad, because he can’t stand seeing the reflection of himself in Alec’s eyes. And he can’t look away. “It’s...it’s whatever you need it to be. Eliot.”

He’d told Nate, that last day, that he _had_ needed something and now he’d found it. Turns out, that didn’t mean he knew what to do with the damn thing. _Quit calling it a thing, Spencer. It has a name_.

There’s a sound then, and Parker, in her strange way, is there beside them. “Nate made food. It’s not terrible. Are we about to kiss Eliot? Is that why he’s up against the wall?”

He can’t breathe right, for any number of reasons. His heart flutters awkwardly in his chest, trying to catch and lift him. Send him soaring.

“Think I could use one. For lu—.” The word founders, finds an updraft, flies free. “Love.”

_THE END._

**Author's Note:**

> When I set out to write this fic, I knew I wanted the job to focus on falconry and falcon smuggling, but I didn't quite know where it would take me (or that it would take 30+k to get there). All the information is accurate, to the best of my knowledge and research.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated! Oh, and come say hi over on tumblr: https://pagerunner.tumblr.com/


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